


an indefinite moratorium on conventional enterprises

by janewestin



Category: True Blood (TV), X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Crossover, F/M, Vampire Jubilee
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-06-27 06:31:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 33,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15679917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janewestin/pseuds/janewestin
Summary: Six years after Pam turned her, Jubilee has a new life working for the Authority in New Orleans. She's happy...right up until Nan Flanagan assigns her to work with someone she thought she'd never see again.(Or: the X-Men/True Blood crossover nobody asked for.)epilogue: 17 december. thanks for the ride, guys. it's been great :)





	1. what's the name of the game

**Author's Note:**

> So, two things. First, my long-time, nostalgic, since-I-was-in-high-school OTP is Wolverine and Jubilee. A grown-up Jubilee, to be clear, not a teenage version, so all my Jubilees are at least 22. I love writing this pairing, and it’s a total indulgence for me. If you want my better-crafted, better-edited writing, please check out my Psych or Avengers fics!
> 
> Second, I read the excellent “Hand to Hand, Hand to Mouth” by Sakura/The Last European (link here: https://m.fanfiction.net/s/2799998/1/), which was tragically abandoned in 2008 after 27 amazing chapters. This fic is sort of an homage to that one, so you might find some similar elements, especially toward the beginning. But I loved the idea of vampire Jubilee being turned in the True Blood universe, so I tried to add my own twist on Sakura’s spy-story theme. Basically, this is a fanfic of a fanfic. 
> 
> This won’t reach many readers, I know, but it's been so fun for me!
> 
> This is dedicated to Marjorie Liu, without whose W&J website my formative college years would have been so much emptier and fic-less :) :)

 

The hours between four PM and sunset are the worst.

 

Ever since I was turned, I’ve tried and tried to sleep until sundown, but for some reason—maybe all the Red Bulls I drank when I was alive, ha ha—I can’t stay dead until it’s safe to go outside. So I have at least three hours a day when I’m stuck in the house, bored out of my skull, with nothing to do except watch terrible movies and crochet. Yes, I taught myself to crochet. That is the level of boredom between late afternoon and dusk.

 

It would be one thing if I had anything even remotely cerebral to do at my job. When I was on an X-team, there was always _something_ between missions—paperwork, training, even those stupid problem-solving team-building escape room drills Hank was always making us do. But now I’m just a minion with a few spy skills and weapon loaded with silver bullets, and _God_ what I wouldn’t give to use my brain at least once every few weeks.

 

The problem is I’m really good at what I do, and with all the shady shit going on behind closed doors in New Orleans and the surrounding Areas, they need me more than ever. All the training I got at the Mansion has served me well, now that I have all of the enhancements of the undead. I may be little, but I can kick the shit out of anyone who messes with an agent of the Authority.

 

I just wish they’d let me _plan_ something once in a while.

 

It’s been four years since I started working for the Authority, and I’ve moved from a low-level guard to an Infiltrator, which is some improvement, I guess. I get to go undercover, which is sort of fun, and I get to identify defectors and rebels, which is slightly less fun. Especially given that Control comes in after me and the vampires I identify are rarely seen again. I never get to coordinate the missions. I don’t even get a full picture. They tell me where to go and what the dissenter is doing, and once I’ve IDed them, I get out of the way.

 

Like I said. Boring.

 

It hurt, thinking about Hank. About any of them. It’s been eight years since M-Day, six since I died, and I don’t even know if they know I’m still around. I was so fucked up after Pam turned me that it was three months before I even knew who I was. And by that point, I was a whole new person.

 

I snuck back to the Mansion once, two years after I was turned. It was a Friday night. I climbed a tree after nightfall and watched them come and go. Scott and Jean, leaving in Scott’s vintage Aston Martin, Jean wearing the enormous diamond earrings he’d gotten her for their sixth anniversary. They sparkled in the driveway lights. Paige and Marie and Kitty, dressed up in heels. No missions tonight. When the movement slowed, I’d crept over to the garage and peered in. No bike. Logan wasn’t there.

 

I went back to the city, to the crappy light-tight hotel I could barely afford, and I cried blood-tears until I retched. Then I went to a dive bar and found a generically handsome fangbanger, and I fucked him and fed on him until I didn’t feel anything any more.

 

Three weeks after that, I had a real _bitch_ of a fight with Pam, and I quit my job at the bar. I stormed out an hour and a half before my shift ended and was the lucky recipient of a punch to the face by a drunk hillbilly who didn’t care for vampires. I punched back, and the next thing I knew, five other basically identical dudes were piling onto me. I was already pissed off, and they were pasty doughy dummies who were relying pretty much completely on stakes they were too drunk to wield, and in about forty seconds they were scattered around my feet in various degrees of disassembly.

 

“Nice,” she said, as the last one fell.

 

I looked up and licked the blood off my lips. She was pretty, in a cold, aloof way. She reminded me a little of Emma.

 

“Yeah, whatever,” I muttered. I had really stepped in it this time. Two of them weren’t moving and there was an awful lot of blood. But damn it, they had thrown the first punch. I pulled my hood over my head and started toward my car.

 

When I heard the crunch of her feet on the gravel behind me, I turned around. “Why are you following me?”

 

“Just wondering where you learned to fight like that,” the woman said. “You’ve had excellent training.”

 

“Uh. Yeah. I guess.” I looked down at my boots. _Damn_ it. They were covered with blood and I’d only just bought them the week before.

 

She looked at my clothes, then back at the bar. “Bit early to be packing it in,” she said.

 

“I’m sorry,” I said, “do you _want_ something?”

 

“I’d like to offer you a job,” she said.

 

A week later I was in an insane mansion in New Orleans, getting fitted for combat gear and trained on weapons I’d never had any use for before. I hadn’t heard from Pam. I wasn’t that surprised. I had a way of driving people away.

 

She did talk to me again, eventually, but my job with the Authority was so secretive that I couldn’t ever say much, so I was on my own again. I’d lived three lives already, and solitude was my only constant.

 

My phone beeped.

 

I paused _Mamma Mia!—_ it was the fourth time I’d watched it this week, I fantasize about summer daylight on gorgeous Greek isles, okay?—and rolled over to pick it up.

 

Nan Flanagan. Well, that was weird. Nan concerned herself with sheriffs and monarchs, cameras and rallies—not with Infiltrators or Control.

 

_Anja—You’re excused from your shift. Report to my office at nightfall._

 

It had a distinctly “come to the principal’s office” tone, and I didn’t like it. Not one bit. Excused from my shift? _Excused_? Sick days didn’t exist for Infiltrators. There simply weren’t enough of us. I could be silvered in my bed and I’d still be expected to show up for work. Besides, Nora was the one who gave me orders.

 

It was still an hour to nightfall, but I got out of bed anyway, went to the kitchen, gulped a Tru Blood. Shuddered. The one benefit of working for the Authority was the abundance of actual blood, _sans_ the human it was formerly attached to. I could eat without the messy consequences, which was pretty nice, since I didn’t particularly relish feeding on the unwilling and I frankly didn’t have the energy to find enthusiastic victims. I wasn’t totally sure _how_ they got the decanters of blood in every workspace, but I had quickly learned that it was way smarter to keep my mouth shut and avoid unnecessary questions.

 

I wandered back into the bedroom. What was one supposed to wear to a meeting with Nan Flanagan? She was into power suits and mean-looking leather jackets. And shoulder pads, I was pretty sure she still wore shoulder pads. I didn’t have any power suits, but I still had some biker shit leftover from my days at Fangtasia. I put on black leggings and a black jacket and the Docs Pam had bought me when I was a little baby vamp. The Authority isn’t exactly into bright colors. Detracts too much from the whole emo-evil-syndicate thing they have going on.

 

I knocked back another Tru Blood, grabbed my keys, and headed out the door. The Authority provided housing on-site for their soldiers, and for the Infiltrators who went on high-level missions, but I was still pretty anonymous. I’d rented my apartment—downtown New Orleans, in an entirely light-tight building—two years prior. It was lively in the evenings, human and vampire tourists alike crowding the streets, and it made me feel less alone.

 

I badged in to the Authority complex twenty minutes before my shift was supposed to start, which gave me not quite enough time to park in the underground lot and scurry through the basement to Nan’s office. Her assistant looked up when I walked in.

 

“You’re late,” she said.

 

“Traffic?” I said, giving her a shit-eating grin.

 

She rolled her eyes. “Go in.”

 

I pushed Nan’s office door open.

 

And froze.

 

“Anja.” Nan’s voice was clipped. “Are you coming in, or are you just going to hover in the doorway?”

 

I walked very, very, very slowly into the room and closed the door behind me.

 

“What,” I said carefully, trying hard not to let my fangs come out, “the fuck. Is he. Doing here?”

 

Nick Fury raised an eyebrow at me. “Thanks for the warm welcome.”

 

“Sit down,” Nan said.

 

I edged along the wall, keeping my eyes on Fury. “No,” I said, “I don’t think I will.”

 

“Sit down, you idiot girl,” Nan snapped. “He’s not going to hurt you.”

 

“I’m not sure if you _know this_ ,” I said, still sliding along the perimeter of the room, “but this asshole is the reason I’m dead in the first place.”

 

“You look fine to me,” Nan said dryly.

 

Fury unfolded his legs and stood up. Too gracefully. He was so fucking _smooth_ and it pissed me off. “I realize we have some history, Lee—” He broke off and looked at Nan. “Is it Lee?”

 

“Swynford,” I gritted out.

 

“Swynford,” he corrected himself, cool as ever. “I realize our last interaction was...less than ideal. I am very, very sorry about that.”

 

“I fucking _died,_ you enormous creep.” I wedged myself into the corner of Nan’s office, my hand on my gun. “You threw me under the proverbial bus. Were you even at my funeral?”

 

“I think you know I wasn’t,” Fury said.

 

“I actually didn’t, so thanks a lot, dickhead,” I said, glaring at him.

 

“Can we all just focus,” Nan interrupted. “Anja. _Sit the fuck down_.”

 

I went to the chair next to Fury’s and sat, still glaring at him.

 

Fury sat down too. Nan stayed standing.

 

“I understand you’ve been taking more complicated assignments,” Nan said to me.

 

I shrugged, keeping my eyes on Fury. “Guess so.”

 

“You’ve been spending a significant amount of time undercover.” She opened a drawer and pulled out a folder stamped with SHIELD’s logo.

 

“No.” I stood up. “No way.” I was _not_ going undercover for SHIELD. Not again.

 

“ _Swynford_ ,” Nan snapped. “Do you have an allergy to that chair?”

 

I lowered myself slowly back down.

 

“I called you here because I have a mission for you,” Nan said, as though her shitty snappy interlude hadn’t happened. “Or, more specifically, Director Fury and I have a mission for you.”

 

“I am _not_ working for him,” I hissed at her, leaning forward to put both hands on her desk.

 

“I implore you to remember the contract you signed when you took this position,” Nan said coolly, reaching toward to push my hands off the mahogany. “You do _what_ the Authority commands, _when_ the Authority commands it.”

 

Fuck. Fuckity fuck fuck fuck. She was right. I couldn’t refuse an assignment without risking a hearing from the Council, and there was, like, a forty percent chance that that would end very badly for me. The Council thought very little about handing out the True Death. Bunch of epochal assholes. Who also happened to be my bosses.

 

I looked at Fury. Infuriatingly, he smiled.

 

I clenched my jaw. “I’m listening,” I said.

 

Nan slid the folder across the desk to me. I took it and opened it. The first document was a field report from SHIELD.

 

“Madripoor?” I said. My mouth went dry, and suddenly I was back there, sweating in the X-Jet, my heart broken, on a mission I wanted desperately to fail. We had been searching for his body.

 

I could feel the Shi’ar fabric of my uniform sticking to my skin, could hear the crackle of the headset in my ear. The floor lurched. I felt sick.

 

 _Logan_.

 

I felt my eyes start to burn and I blinked hard, because if there was one thing I absolutely didn’t need, it was Fuckwad Fury seeing me cry.

 

“Director Fury tells me you completed several successful missions there,” Nan said, sitting down. “Both before and after you were in the employ of SHIELD.”

 

I cleared my throat, forcing the tears back. “Yes,” I said.

 

“You should read the rest of that,” Fury said from beside me.

 

I glared at him. “I’m getting to that. _Sir.”_

 

I flipped through the file, biting the inside of my cheek hard enough to draw blood. I scanned the field reports, sparse as they were, and looked up at Nan.

 

“ _Mutant_ vampires?” I said, horrified.

 

I had read about it, but had never seen it happen. Mutants who were bitten, who were turned—they died horrible deaths. Their bodies rejected the transformation, slowly breaking down, bleeding and cracking until they disintegrated in the True Death. That they should be running rampant—especially enough to warrant an investigation by the Authority—was unheard of.

 

“It seems,” Fury said, “that these mutants in Madripoor have retained their powers, while capitalizing on the significant benefits that vampirism confers.”

 

I blurted a laugh. “ _Benefits_ ,” I said. “Right.”

 

“It also seems,” Nan said, “that these vampires are Sanguinistas.”

 

Shit.

 

The Authority hated very few things more than it hated Sanguinistas. Mainstreaming had been the name of the game since long before I was turned. Any threat to that was a threat to all of us. At least, that was what they claimed.

 

“And?” I said.

 

“It’s possible they’re turning mutants against their will,” Fury said. “One of our best agents disappeared. She was seen six months later feeding from a human in Hightown. The human was found dead in an alley the next morning.”

 

“So let me get this straight,” I said. “You think Sanguinistas are using mutants as...what? Agents for their vampire superiority agenda?” I snorted.

 

Nan leveled her icy stare straight at me. “That’s exactly what we think,” she said.

 

Okay, so this was maybe a tiny bit more serious than it appeared.

 

I closed the file and put it back on the desk. “So you need me for what?”

 

Nan rolled her eyes. “ _Obviously_ ,” she said, “we need someone with connections. Someone who speaks the language. Someone who’s been there before.”

 

“Nora doesn’t send me past Area Six,” I said stubbornly, folding my arms.

 

“ _Nora,_ ” Nan said, her voice acrid, “is the one who volunteered you for this mission, so I suggest you tone down the fucking backtalk.”

 

I scrunched up my face in frustration. I was very quickly running out of ways to object. “You realize it’s been almost a decade since I worked for SHIELD.”

 

“Your job is reconnaissance, is it not?” Nan said, leaning back in her chair. “I have full confidence in your ability to get the information we need. Furthermore, you’ll be working with a mutant counterpart.”

 

I grimaced. “Not one of yours, I hope,” I said to Fury. I didn’t think I could stand seeing one of my old coworkers, much less working with them. I fervently hoped that I’d be paired up with some green kid who’d be easy to order around and wouldn’t give me any flashbacks to my previous life.

 

He raised an eyebrow. “Not directly,” he said. “Let’s just say it’s a contracted position.”

 

I sighed. “Fine,” I said. I glared at Nan, who was looking annoyingly satisfied. “Fine. So go there, get some intel, send it back to you, and then it’s back to my regularly scheduled programming, right?”

 

Nan gave me a tight smile. “Right,” she said.

 

“And who,” I said, turning to Fury, “might you be saddling me with? Anyone I know? Trip down memory lane?”

 

“You could say that,” Fury said, smirking. “Past experience has shown that you two work well together.” He gave me a look filled with significance out of his good eye.

 

My stomach dropped into my feet.

 

“No,” I said.

 

Nan rolled her eyes even more extravagantly. “Again,” she reminded me, “this is not optional.”

 

If I still had a heartbeat, it would have been racing. “Does he even know I’m not dead?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

“As of about six hours ago,” Fury said. “He’s on his way here now.”

 

“Jesus Christ.” I put my head in my hands.

 

“Are we going to have a problem?” Nan’s voice was light, but I heard the undercurrent of threat.

 

I took a deep breath, filling my functionless lungs with air I didn’t need. I sat up and looked at Nan, arranging my expression into one of bland compliance.

 

“Nope,” I said. “We’re all good.”

 

“Glad to hear it.” Nan stood up. “In that case, go home and pack. Be back here in three hours. Your flight leaves at one. We’ll have a coffin for you on the plane.”

 

“Fantastic,” I said. I looked at Fury. “Anything you want to add, cue ball?”

 

“I think Chancellor Flanagan about covered it,” Fury said coolly. “Nice to see you, Jubilation.”

 

 _Fuck you,_ I thought. “Nice to see you too, Nick.”


	2. the roar of guns and cannons

I felt like throwing up the whole way back to my apartment. Logan was on his way here.  _ Here _ . And he hadn’t even known I still existed.

 

I made it to my living room before the tears came.

 

“Fuck,” I whispered, closing the door and sliding down it. My chest felt like it was cracking in half.

 

I saw Logan twice after M-Day. The first was when he rescued me from Berlin. I was flayed open, half-dead, at the mercy of SHIELD medics. I remember his voice, panic and terror as he shouted at me to stay with him. He was blurry. I hurt everywhere. He had me in his arms. Then there were bright lights, and masked faces, and he was gone.

 

The second time I saw him was a year later outside a Starbucks in San Francisco. I had been working on a field report for Fury, curled in an armchair with my back to a corner, and when I looked up from my unicorn latte he was walking by the window.

 

I remember lurching out of the armchair, slamming my laptop shut, running to the door. He was ten feet away. His name was on my lips. I thought he would smell me, would hear me,  _ something.  _ But he was smiling, talking to the woman beside him, and he didn’t turn around.

 

I drank a bottle of wine that night, alone in my hotel room, and I cried myself to sleep. Four months later, I took a silver bullet to the heart and died in the bayou.

 

I didn’t try to track him down, after that. When I recovered from being turned, Eric hired me at Fangtasia. I adapted to my new life, slinging Tru Blood and vodka cranberries until four in the morning, sleeping in Pam’s basement during the day. It was a nice existence, uncomplicated, until I made the colossally stupid decision to creep on my old life in Westchester. And I was fucked up enough from seeing them all, carrying on with their lives as though my death hadn’t even happened, to toss away my new vampire family and plunge into solitude once again. Only this time, I carried the True Death in my wake.

 

I wiped my eyes and got up, then dragged my suitcase out of the closet and started packing. Madripoor. There was a time when I knew it like the back of my hand. 

 

What the  _ fuck  _ was I doing?

 

I felt sick and nervous and halfway back to the Authority compound I almost turned back. But Logan was a damn sight better than the wrong end of a stake, so I clenched my jaw and kept driving.

 

I texted Nan when I got into the parking garage.  _ Where do I go _

 

She texted back immediately.  _ B16 conference room _ .

 

The walk to B16 felt a hundred miles long. My heart wanted me to run; my feet were lead sinking into quicksand. There was a knot of anxiety in my chest that I hadn’t felt since my trip back to the Mansion.

 

The conference room was glass. Nan was sitting at the table. Logan wasn’t there.

 

“Swynford,” she said.

 

“Chancellor.” I sat down.

 

“You’ll be staying in Hightown,” Nan said. “We’ve arranged a room for you. I trust I don’t need to tell you how to behave. Your IDs are in the bag.” She slid a MacBook into a laptop bag and pushed it across the table to me. “Remember that you are gathering information. You do  _ not  _ need to make contact with anyone, particularly if they appear to be a dissenter or Sanguinista.” She twisted her mouth when she said the word, as though she’d tasted something bad.

 

“I report to you, then?” I said, trying to keep my voice level. “Not Nora?”

 

“Correct.” Nan pulled a phone out of her pocket handed it to me. “Secure line.” 

 

“And I’m looking for...”

 

“I’m not doing your job  _ for _ you, Swynford,” Nan said coldly. “You’re looking for vampires who are also mutants, and I don’t know a fucking thing about that.” She got up and went to the door. “Hurry up. You might be able to make Madripoor before sunup.”

 

Nan traveled everywhere in a limo with opaque windows. I put my bag in the trunk. “So,” I said, trying to sound casual, “Logan is...”

 

She rolled her eyes. “At the airfield,” she said. “I don’t know what your history is, and I don’t want to know. You get this done, you never have to see him again. Understood?”

 

I glanced at her. She was glaring at me. 

 

“Understood,” I said.

 

The drive to the airfield was simultaneously way too long and not nearly long enough. When the limo pulled in, I almost couldn’t make myself open the door.

 

The plane was on the runway, stairs down. Smaller than the jets SHIELD normally used, but it looked military grade and I wondered how fast it would get to Madripoor. I walked toward it with feet that felt like they were made of lead.

 

“Have a nice flight,” Nan said, and slammed the door.

 

I swallowed hard, shifted my bags higher on my shoulder, and went up the stairs.

 

He was in the back of the plane. The first thing I thought was that he looked exactly the same. 

 

He looked at me when I walked in, and his eyes were wide, and his face was as pale as I’d ever seen it.

 

He stood up too fast, banging his head on the fuselage. I winced. He didn’t. 

 

“Jube,” he said, his voice cracking. 

 

I swallowed hard and put my bag on a seat. “No one calls me that any more,” I said.

 

He took a step toward me, and another. He was reaching for me, his expression stunned and disbelieving. To my shock, I saw that he was shaking.

 

He put a hand on my shoulder. It had been a while since I’d been touched by a human. The warmth always surprised me.

 

He looked like he was going to pull me to him, to hug me, and I was absolutely not ready for that. I stepped back.

 

“It’s good to see you,” I said, and my voice sounded hoarse and uneven. 

 

He let his hand drop. “I didn’t know you were alive,” he said. He looked tired, suddenly, and terribly sad. 

 

I tried for a smile, a shrug. “Well. Technically I’m not.”

 

HIs lips compressed. He looked away. 

 

“Sorry,” I said.  _ Fuck _ . Why was I apologizing?  _ He _ was the one who had run away from me. He was the one who had abandoned me, barely twenty years old, newly human and newly homeless. The one person I thought I could depend on through that nightmare and he couldn’t respond to a fucking  _ text _ . Thank God for Natasha, who had brought me to SHIELD.

 

He opened his mouth like he was going to say something, then closed it again.

 

“I, uh.” I edged past him to the shiny white coffin in the back of the plane. “This is me.”

 

It was PVC or something equally lightweight, and I lifted the lid. Pink satin padding. Nice. 

 

“Right,” he said, looking uncomfortable. 

 

“You’re flying?” I asked, because the cockpit was empty and I didn’t see a pilot on the tarmac.

 

He cleared his throat. “Uh. Yeah.”

 

“It’s a long flight.” I glanced at my coffin. “You’ll be okay?”

 

He nodded, looking away.  _ God _ this was so awkward. I knew I was supposed to play nice, but it was hard.

 

“I can copilot,” I offered. “We’re flying against the sun, it’ll still be dark when we get there.”

 

And fuck if he didn’t actually brighten a little. “That’d be—good,” he said.

 

I buckled myself in beside him and was hit with such a wave of deja vu that for a moment I felt completely disconcerted. We used to do this. I’d had my license by sixteen; we’d flown missions together for four years. 

 

“Just like old times, huh,” he said, echoing my thoughts.

 

I looked at him. There was a little gray at his temples that hadn’t been there before. A few more lines around his eyes. Besides that, he looked exactly the same, right down to the flannel shirt and jeans. The only thing missing was a cigar stuck in his mouth. 

 

I could smell him. He smelled like home.

 

A wave of emotion hit me and I blinked hard against blood tears. I took a breath. 

 

“Let’s get this show on the road, cap,” I said to him, and put my hands on the yoke.

 

He flew in silence, the jet doing most of the work, and I could feel him looking at me every few minutes. I wondered what he was thinking. I wondered if he had missed me. 

 

Once we were at altitude, the constant curious glances started to bug me. I kept thinking he was going to say something and he never did. “Be right back,” I said.

 

I unbuckled my seatbelt and left the cockpit, went to the back of the plane. Nan had told me it was stocked. I found a decanter of blood in the cabinet and bottles of Tru Blood in the fridge. I opted for the blood and poured it into a cut-crystal glass.  _ So _ much better than the fake shit, although I was absolutely not permitted to say that out loud. The anticoagulant in the blood tasted sharp and citrusy on my tongue. I finished the glass and wiped my mouth.

 

“You want a water?” I called up to Logan.

 

He looked over his shoulder at me, saw me with the empty glass in my hand, the blood on my lips, and the consternation on his face ignited a white-hot burst of anger in my chest.  _ It’s not my fault I’m like this _ , I wanted to scream at him.  _ Where the fuck were you? _

 

“Uh, sure,” he said. 

 

I pulled a bottle of water from the fridge, brought it to the cockpit, and slapped it into his hand. 

 

“Thanks, Jube,” he said.

 

“Name’s Anna Tao in Madripoor,” I said coldly, sliding back into my seat and buckling the seatbelt. “According to my paperwork. And you’re Arthur Ellis.”

 

He looked at me, seeming to register my anger. 

 

“You—are you okay?”

 

I seethed.  _ Okay _ ? Was I okay? Oh, sure, I was fine, not at all violently triggered by being forced to work against my will with the piece of shit who abandoned me in my goddamn hour of need. I might not be  _ dead _ if I’d had a home to go to that wasn’t a giant fortress in the sky. 

 

My fangs had come out. I clamped my lips closed. 

 

“I’m fine,” I said, opening my mouth as little as possible.

 

He didn’t say anything for a while after that, just kept giving me those weird sidelong glances. Finally, he said, “You said no one calls you Jubilation any more.”

 

I kept my eyes on the horizon. “Jubilation died six years ago,” I said flatly.

 

He swallowed. “Yeah.”

 

“Sorry to say I missed the funeral,” I said. “Would have a been a fun Tom Sawyer moment.”

 

I snuck a glance at him. His jaw was tight, his lips pulled in at the corners. His nostrils flared with every breath. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought that the expression on his face was grief.

 

“It’s Anja Swynford now,” I said, because I didn’t have the time or energy to work through his emotional issues. Not when I was abruptly being forced to deal with my own. 

 

“Anja,” he repeated. 

 

“Yeah,” I said. “But Anna while we’re undercover, got it? Don’t fuck it up and call me the wrong name.”

 

He cast a stormy glance at me. “When have I ever?” he asked.

 

“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s been a long time.”

 

By the time we got to Madripoor, daylight was starting to peek across the horizon.

 

“Sky’s lightening,” Logan said. 

 

My skin was already starting to sting. “Yeah,” I said. I got out of my seat and hightailed it to the coffin. 

 

Madripoor.

 

Logan.

 

I slept.

 

***

 

I woke up disoriented. I rarely slept in a coffin these days, as most places I went had light tight hotels. I had forgotten how uncomfortable it was. It was made for travel and the ceiling was claustrophobically low.

 

I reached for my phone. It was five PM, and I didn’t know where we were, and I wasn’t sure if it was safe to come out. Should have gotten Logan’s number before I went to sleep. 

 

I banged on the coffin lid. “Yo. Logan.”

 

There was silence, then a tap from outside. “Hey,” he said, muffled.

 

“Safe to emerge?” I called.

 

Another tap. “Yep.”

 

I pushed the lid open and sat up, stretching my neck. Polyfil and satin had nothing on a good Tempurpedic mattress. “Ugh.” Then I looked around. “Wow.”

 

We were clearly in Hightown. It was an extremely nice room: king sized bed with about seventy-five pillows, windows opacified against the sun, lamps dimmed on the end tables. The sheets were white, which for a vampire hotel indicated a hefty nightly rate.

 

I got out of the coffin. “I’d do a lot of recon missions for rooms like this,” I said.

 

Logan sat down on the bed. He had changed clothes; he smelled like soap. He didn’t answer.

 

I went to the window and looked out. The view was slightly clouded by the light-blockers, but it was nice nonetheless: lots of tall building and bright lights, and beyond them, a glittering harbor. Surely filled with pollution and dumped oil from all the import/export ships, but gorgeous from a distance.

 

“I literally have no idea where to begin,” I said, putting my forehead against the glass. It almost felt warm against my cold skin. I had a headache.

 

I heard him shift on the bed. He cleared his throat. “I have the files from SHIELD,” he said. I turned around. He was holding them out to me, the strangest look on his face. Almost as though he was afraid I would snap at him. 

 

If I was going to make it through this mission with my sanity intact, I had to quit getting pissed off every time I looked at his stupid face. I gritted my teeth and forced a little smile.  _ Play nice, Jubilation. _

 

“You got more intel than me,” I said, going to the bed and sitting next to him. His file was at least twice the thickness of the one I’d been given. “Oh. You have pictures.”

 

I reached for them and shuffled through them. Unfamiliar face, unfamiliar face, unfamiliar face—and then—

 

“What the fuck,” I said, pulling out a photo of Ophelia Sarkissian. 

 

Logan glanced over. “Yeah,” he said.

 

“I thought she died like a  _ decade _ ago!” I threw the photo onto the floor. “You’ve got to be kidding me. They think she’s behind this?”

 

“Maybe.” He pulled out a report. “She owns four vampire casinos on the Hightown strip. Three known mutant vampires spotted working at them. Four human deaths in the past six weeks.”

 

“Jesus.” I flipped the pages of the file. “Is  _ she _ a vampire?”

 

“Don’t know,” Logan said. 

 

“Okay,” I said. “Guess I start here.”

 

Logan looked at me sharply. “You mean  _ we _ start here, darlin.”

 

I looked at him flatly. “You’re not going into a vampire club,” I said. 

 

He held my gaze. “The hell I’m not,” he said. “I’m here to work  _ with _ you, Jube, not sit in a fancy hotel.”

 

“You’ll stick out like a sore thumb,” I said. “You’ll have a target on your back. And, consequently, mine. Which is exactly what I  _ don’t  _ want, thank you very much.”

 

He folded his arms. 

 

“ _ Really? _ ” I said, annoyed. “Like a  _ toddler _ ?”

 

Silence.

 

“Oh my  _ God _ .” I threw my hands in the air. “ _ Fine _ . But you have to  _ do what I say _ and not attract any undue attention, you hear me?”

 

He smirked. “I hear you.”

 

“The only people in these clubs are vampires and fangbangers,” I said, unzipping my bag and pulling out a black corset top. I went into the bathroom, adding “So you better look like the latter.”

 

When I got back out, makeup on and boobs hoisted, Logan was standing in front of the bed, every paper he’d been given spread on on the comforter. He was chomping on an unlit cigar. He looked up at me. The paper he was holding fell out of his hand.

 

“You—” He blinked. “You look—Nice.”

 

I did not look nice. I looked mean, and I looked hot. But it made me feel fiercely satisfied to see him stumble over his words. So there was that. 

 

Fuck you, Logan. I’m doing just fine.

 

“Thanks,” I said. 

 

I went to the minibar for a Tru Blood, and I could feel his gaze on me. In another life, I would have killed to have Logan look at me like he was looking at me now. But that was a long time ago.

 

I came back over to the bed and picked up the paper he’d dropped. “Here.”

 

“Thanks.” He looked down at the bed, seeming to shake himself. “The, uh, it looks like we should start at this place Gila. At Casino 24. That’s where this SHIELD agent Sing was spotted.”

 

“Sure.” I looked outside. The sun was starting to set. Probably an hour until dark. “Did you eat?”

 

“No.” His brow furrowed. He’d forgotten. Some things never changed.

 

“Get some room service or something,” I said. I dug in my suitcase and found the six-carat ruby necklace I’d been given for undercover assignments. I draped it around my neck. “We’ll go at nightfall.”

 

***

 

The Hightown strip was even more ridiculous than I remembered. It looked like Vegas on steroids. Although the sun was fully down, it was as bright as two in the afternoon. 

 

“This is awful,” Logan said, looking around. The streets were full of people, human and vampire, drinking giant plastic glasses of booze and blood. Music thumped from open doors. Lights flashed. Bikini-clad women handed out cards advertising willing humans for consumption. 

 

“I don’t know,” I said, stumbling a little as someone shoved me into Logan. “It’s kind of nice. You know, for those of us who are daylight-challenged.”

 

He caught my arm. “Watch it,” he muttered at the girl who’d bumped me. She glared at him and changed direction. 

 

We kept walking, but he didn’t let go of my arm. 

 

“I’m okay,” I said, but it was as though he hadn’t heard. He just kept his fingers wrapped around my bicep. It felt nice and I hated that I liked it.  

 

“Up here on the right,” he said. As though I’d miss it. It said  _ 24 _ in gigantic green neon letters superimposed over a neon Gila monster. There was a high pedestal outside the door and two women in short skirts and skimpy sequined bras were twirling on matching gold poles.

 

“Interesting,” I said. Logan wouldn’t stand out so much after all. There were humans and vampires alike on the casino floor, and they were dressed in everything from full-length formals to cargo shorts and T-shirts. Okay, so it had been a while since I’d been to an actual gigantic city.

 

We threaded our way through the throngs of people gambling and drinking. The nightclub was at the back of the casino. The roped-off line stretched all the way down the marble hall.

 

“Shit,” Logan said. 

 

“Nah. I got this.” I took him by the hand and went straight up to the bouncer. He looked at the ruby around my neck and nodded.

 

“He’s with me,” I said in Malay. He nodded again, stood aside for us to pass.

 

“What the fuck was that?” Logan murmured in my ear, glancing at the line of people that were now giving us the stinkeye.

 

“Sort of evil vampire VIP,” I said quietly. “Exact opposite of the Authority. Sanguinistas mostly. It’s a stupid antiquated way to show you’re a bad guy.”

 

“Friends in low places,” Logan muttered. He cast a hunted glance around the club. Gyrating bodies, thumping music, flashing lights—pretty much everything Logan hated. Too much sensory input. I felt him tense. Oh, he needed to not freak out right about now. The last thing I needed was him to go all feral and pointy in the middle of a crowd of uber _ - _ rich vampires.

 

I reached over and gave his forearm a little squeeze. He looked at me, surprise on his face, but I saw him relax.

 

I looked around. The VIP room was almost always at the back. Sure enough, there was a man in a suit and sunglasses standing by a roped-off door.

 

“This way,” I said, pulling Logan’s hand.

 

The man turned his head a fraction of an inch when he saw the ruby around my neck. 

 

“Looking for a game,” I said to him. Vampires frequently illegally gambled with their humans. I was willing to bet there was some of that going on back there.

 

He lifted an eyebrow. “Poker tonight,” he said. 

 

“Works for me.”

 

The man gave Logan the once-over, and I could almost see him roll his eyes behind the dark glasses. I knew what he was thinking. Crazy rich vamp and her rough-and-tumble blood bag, a big healthy buy-in. Or maybe I was looking to trade up.

 

There were two poker tables inside, only three open seats. Along the walls were small, cozy tables, almost all occupied, almost all with the surrounding curtains pulled closed. I could hear, over the pounding bass, the sound of moans and gasps. Feeding or fucking or both. So much for no sex in the champagne room.

 

I pulled Logan to one of the few open tables. “Sit,” I hissed, “and now we wait.”

 

He sat and I folded myself onto the booth next to him, reaching over to pull the curtains most of the way closed. I could see similar rubies to mine flashing in the lights, around the necks of glamorous women and men. I didn’t see Sing.

 

A blond woman in an extremely tiny skirt and tank top came over with a tray. “Drinks?” she asked, and repeated herself in Malay.

 

“Tru Blood, O neg,” I said, “and he’ll have three fingers of Macallan, the twenty-five if you have it, neat.” I flashed a smile at her.

 

“You want your Tru Blood sparkling?” she asked me.

 

“Yeah, thanks.” 

 

When she’d left, I reached over and dug my fingernails into Logan’s knee. He jumped, looked at me. “ _ Hey _ ,” I hissed in his ear. “Try not to look like you’re on the prowl, okay? The only way you’re gonna be safe from these freaks is if they think I’ve claimed you. At least make an attempt to seem like you’re into it.”

 

I gave him a nip on his neck, harder than I’d meant to, and I felt his quick intake of breath. 

 

“Right,” he said, and I saw a little flush in his cheeks. “Sorry.”

 

He obligingly put his arm up and I snaked under it, sliding my hand across his inner thigh. He hissed and tensed. “Easy, Jubilation,” he growled in my ear.

 

My stomach tightened. What was  _ that  _ supposed to mean?

 

“Just playing the part,” I said, my lips against his cheek. 

 

He looked away. “Sure,” he said.

 

Maybe I was overdoing it. It was possible. It was also possible that I wanted him to feel  _ something _ for me, even if it was a little misplaced lust. And he was so warm, and he smelled so good, and I didn’t realize until this moment how fucking much I had missed him. 

 

Suddenly he tensed. Turning into my cheek, he trailed his lips over my cheekbone until they brushed the whorl of my ear. I shuddered. 

 

And then immediately forgot how good he felt when he muttered, “There’s our girl.”

 

I raised my gaze slowly, a lazy smile on my face, as though I was merely enjoying my envoy’s attentions. I saw her. She was wearing a red bandage dress and stilettos that were at least six inches tall. And she had  _ wings _ .

 

“Jesus,” I murmured, turning my face toward Logan’s, hiding my lips behind his cheek. “And no one’s batting an eye. Do they not know what being turned does to mutants?”

 

His lips were a fraction of an inch from mine. I could feel his breath pick up. “Apparently not,” he said. “So we follow her, or what?”

 

“That sounds like a good plan to me. Safe distance,” I added. I sat back, my eyes on Sing. She was talking to a man, tall and handsome in a tailored suit, and she looked pissed. I glanced at Logan. He wasn’t looking at Sing.

 

He was looking at me.

 

Sing said something sharply to the man, set her glass on the table, and walked toward the door.

 

“She’s moving,” I said urgently. “Come on.”

 

I slid out of the booth and almost bumped into the waitress, who was back with our drinks.

 

“Going somewhere?” she purred, and there was a flash of movement behind me.

 

“Lo—” I started, and then there was the terrible sound of silver chain, and someone was dragging me backward, and my skin was burning, burning, burning.

  
  



	3. knowing me knowing you

Whoever it was yanked silver cloth over my eyes, my mouth. They dragged me backwards and I heard a door slam, heard the click of a lock. I twisted and kicked, but they’d somehow managed to wrap silver almost all around me, and every time I moved it was agony. They were  _ strong— _ if they weren’t a vampire then they were certainly a mutant.

 

Finally I was thrown into a chair. My arms were yanked behind me. More chain around my wrists, my ankles. 

 

“ _ Fuck _ ,” I gasped, when a hand ripped the silver mesh off my mouth.  _ “ _ Oh  _ fuck _ that hurts.” It felt like half my skin came off with it. I tried to open my eyes, but there was still silver over them. 

 

I felt a glass at my lips. Blood. Someone was tipping it toward me. I sputtered, spit. 

 

“You should drink.” A woman’s voice, low and intense.  

 

“Oh, go screw,” I managed to say, but a few drops of blood got into my mouth and I gulped them down despite myself.

 

The glass was withdrawn. “Suit yourself,” the woman said. A moment later, I felt the sharp pain of a needle at my neck. 

 

“Hey!” I yelped. 

 

“Need your blood,” the woman said. 

 

“Of course you do,” I muttered. Just great. Ten minutes in and I was already a science experiment.

 

The needle was withdrawn, and I heard the woman walk across the room. Glass clanked against metal. “Be nice and I might let you go.” 

 

“Where’s Logan?” I demanded. I wiggled my eyebrows, trying to move the silver blindfold over my eyes. My wrists and ankles were in agony. Every time I shifted, the silver bindings sizzled against my skin.

 

“What are you doing in Hightown?” She came back over to me. She didn’t smell human, but she didn’t quite smell like a vampire either. 

 

I sneered. “What do you think?” I said sharply. “Here to fuck and feed, why is anyone in Hightown?”

 

Sudden bright pain against my chest. She’d pressed something silver into my skin. I shrieked. 

 

“I  _ said _ , what are you doing in Hightown,” the woman said, sharper this time.

 

“Fuck off,” I gasped. 

 

I heard the clatter of metal on the floor, the scrape of her chair. She stood up. Her footsteps retreated. A door opened, closed. 

 

I listened. Nothing. I was alone. I tugged experimentally at the binding on my wrists, and gasped with pain when the chain shifted. 

 

_ Think, Jubilation _ . They took my blood, so they wanted to use me for research. Of course they did. If they wanted to stake me, they’d have done it already. So they were going to make me a lab rat.

 

Or—and it made me feel sick to think of it—they were going to use me for leverage. I wasn’t super keen on being tortured. I really had to get out of here. 

 

I sniffed the air. It smelled like the back room of a bar, rotten fruit and rank alcohol. So we hadn’t gone far. 

 

And then, suddenly, the unmistakable sound of adamantium slicing through metal. Of Logan’s heavy steps coming closer.

 

There was a thud of the door being kicked open and I smelled him: sweat and leather. He was in the room with me. 

 

“ _ Jube,” _ he said, and suddenly I felt myself being lifted, chair and all. I heard footsteps in the hall.

 

“Get this silver off me,” I managed to say.

 

“Can’t quite yet,” Logan grunted. I felt myself being lifted and tossed over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. My chest was pinned painfully against his shoulder. It was a good thing I didn’t need to breathe.

 

“Brace yourself,” he said. I heard the sharp bright sound of glass shattering, and then we were falling.

 

He hit the ground hard, rolling forward onto me. I felt my ribs crack and break, lightning bolts of pain shooting through my chest. The chair broke apart beneath me, making me dizzy with terror—a wood stake was a wood stake, even if it was a chair leg.

 

I didn’t explode, though, so yay for that. 

 

“ _ Go, _ ” he gritted out. It sounded like he was talking to himself. He ran. I felt my broken ribs shifting and rolling against each other like Lincoln Logs. I yelped in pain, and a half second later I felt myself being thrown into a car.

 

“ _ What _ —” A man’s voice, and then I heard Logan grab him and toss him out of the driver’s seat. He started the car.

 

“Logan, what the  _ fuck _ is going on?” I rolled like a billiard ball from one side of the backseat to the other as the car screeched around corners. 

 

“Hang on, Jube,” Logan yelled. 

 

In the distance, I heard sirens. 

 

“I hope those aren’t for us,” I said, my head hitting the door as he took another sharp turn. He didn’t answer.

 

I didn’t know how long we drove—twenty minutes, thirty. When the car finally rolled to a halt, I was banged up and burned and really, really wanted to know what the fuck was going on.

 

I heard Logan get out of the driver’s seat. A second later, the door by my head opened, and he was pulling me out of the car. 

 

“Sorry, Jube,” he muttered.

 

“My face, get this shit off my  _ face _ ,” I said.

 

I felt him grab the edge of the silver mesh and start to peel it away from my eyes. I squawked in pain. He let go; it fell back against my skin.

 

“ _ No _ !” I shrieked. “Just rip it off, goddamn it, it’s frying my whole head.”

 

“I’m sorry,” he said again, desperately. He grabbed the mesh again and this time pulled it all the way off. I heard my skin being ripped off with it and sank my fangs into my tongue to keep from screaming.

 

_ Finally _ I could open my eyes. Logan was kneeling in front of me, covered in dirt, broken glass in his hair. His expression bordered on panic. The only time I’d seen him look like that was Berlin. 

 

“You look like shit,” I said. 

 

The panicked look mellowed a little. “You should see yourself, darlin.”

 

“I will happily do that as soon as I can move again.” I gritted my teeth. “Now maybe you can take this silver off me. Please.” I didn’t mean to sound like I was begging, but it hurt  _ so fucking much _ .

 

“Yeah.” His hands were shaking as he rolled me over and found the end of the chain. I gasped when he pulled it. I felt more skin come away.

 

“It’s okay,” I managed to say. Tears came to my eyes. “Just get it off.”

 

He gave one final pull and my wrists were free. Immediately I reached down and ripped the silver off my ankles.

 

“Jube!” He looked horrified. 

 

“Oh God that’s better.” I closed my eyes and tipped my face up. My skin hurt so much my vision was blurry. “I think my shoulder’s dislocated, too. Do me a favor and pop it back in, would you?”

 

I dimly registered the agonized expression on his face. “Yeah,” he said. He reached for my wrist, braced my chest with his free hand, and pulled.

 

I let out a howl, but the pain dissipated almost immediately when my shoulder popped back into its socket.

 

“Fuck,” I said again. I wiped my eyes with my good hand. “What the  _ fuck _ was that.”

 

“Someone knew we were coming,” Logan growled. He reached down and picked me up, one arm around my back, the other under my knees. He moved me back to the backseat of the car. 

 

I looked around, finally. He’d parked in an empty lot by the harbor. The lights of the city were far away.

 

He slid in beside me. “Let me see,” he said, taking my hand.

 

“It’ll heal,” I said, although the pain in my wrists was making me wish it’d hurry the hell up. It didn’t usually take this long. “It looks worse than it is.”

 

He looked at my skin, raw and red and torn, and then back at me. “Looks pretty fuckin bad,” he said.

 

“Yeah. Well.” 

 

He put his hand on the back of my neck. “You need blood.”

 

“Yeah.” I grimaced. “Eventually.”

 

“No,” he said, “now.” 

 

He pulled me toward him and turned his head, exposing the veins of his neck.

 

I closed my eyes. “Wolvie, no.”

 

I felt him tense when he heard me say my old nickname for him. I wasn’t sure where it came from. It just slipped out.

 

“Jube.” He stroked the back of my head. “We can’t go back to the hotel. You’re hurt. You need to eat.”

 

He shifted, pulled me against him, and I suddenly felt his skin against my lips. Warm and smooth, rasp of stubble scraping my nose. I wasn’t sure if it was his healing factor or what, but he smelled absolutely fucking delicious. 

 

I realized my fangs were out. I felt dizzy, weak-limbed. 

 

“Eat,” he said. 

 

I bit him.

 

He made a noise that was half grunt, half groan when my teeth sank into his throat. His blood welled up, over my tongue, over my lips. I felt the buzz of his heartbeat against my lips and it felt so  _ good _ , he tasted like summer and honeysuckle and sex and I felt the pain draining away. I clutched at his shoulders, angling myself closer to him, the sweet rush of pleasure making my eyes roll back in my head.

 

“Easy,” he whispered after a minute, and I pulled back at once, an acid-rot of shame starting in my stomach.

 

“I’m so sorry,” I said. I cupped his face in my hands. His eyes were wide. “Oh my God, I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

 

The wound in his neck was already closing. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m okay. Are  _ you _ okay?”

 

Okay was an understatement. My whole body was humming, heated with his blood, and I felt like I always did when I fed from a willing human—wired and half-crazed with lust. 

 

“Jube?” He put his forehead to mine, his expression anxious. “Hey.”

 

I stared at him. His pupils were dilated. I gulped. “No—I mean, I’m good. I’m just—I’m good.” I realized I was basically in his lap, my arm looped around his neck. It was not a very spacious backseat. 

 

He put his other arm around me and pulled me closer. His lips were a fraction of an inch from mine.

 

Damn it.

 

This was not what was supposed to happen.

 

I shifted a little, tried to take some of my weight off his lap, and abruptly I felt him hard against my hip.

 

He jerked away with a gasp. I leapt off of him, scrambled backwards, my knees slipping to the floor of the car and my chin hitting his thigh in what was absolutely an even more awkward position than the one we’d so quickly exited.

 

“Oh fuck, I’m sorry,” I said, climbing back onto the seat. If I could still blush, I would have been. I couldn’t believe I had just bumped his  _ boner _ . Like a  _ high schooler _ , for God’s sake. A giggle escaped and I clamped a hand over my mouth.

 

Logan looked mortified. He rocketed out of the backseat like a shot and was back in the driver’s seat in an instant.

 

He started the car. 

 

“Where are we going?” I asked. Oh, this was bad. This was, like, worse than being kidnapped from a VIP lounge by anonymous silver-wielders. It was bad, and it was also sort of hilarious. I bit my lip to keep any more laughter from bubbling up.

 

“Lowtown,” Logan said gruffly. He reached in his pocket and handed me my phone. “We’re going to hope they didn’t follow us.”

 

We drove in absolute silence, the lights of the Hightown strip becoming a distant skyline behind us as we headed toward the grimy south end of the island. 

 

I checked my phone. It was just after eleven. Sunrise was in fewer than eight hours, and I had no coffin and no idea if there were vampire hotels on the bad side of town. I Googled things while Logan drove. 

 

“Here,” I said, finding a one-star place that claimed it was light tight. I entered the address and propped my phone on the dashboard. I supposed I could stay in the trunk, worst case scenario, but I really hoped that wouldn’t be necessary.

 

Logan parked the car six blocks from the motel, wiped the interior down with his shirt, and left the keys in the glove compartment. We took a winding path back. I hadn’t seen anyone following us while we drove, but Logan kept casting hunted looks over his shoulder. 

 

The hotel was definitely light tight: there were absolutely no windows. It was just a giant beige cube in the middle of a gravel parking lot. The reception desk was staffed by a tired-looking middle-aged man who barely made eye contact with us. He scanned my phone for payment, then slid two keys across the counter.

 

“Four twelve,” he said. 

 

Boy, I couldn’t  _ wait  _ to get a call from Nan about why Anna Tao had just checked in to a shitty hotel thirty miles from where we were supposed to be. Also, the fucking  _ files _ were back in our original hotel room. 

 

The elevator was out of order, so we walked up four flights and found the room. It had two sad-looking double beds with flowered comforters and a threadbare green carpet. Logan threw the deadbolt and chain and went to check the bathroom and closet. 

 

“Think we’re okay?” I felt jittery and anxious, and, to be honest, still a little bit turned on.

 

“Dunno.” He sat down at the lopsided desk and pulled out his phone. 

 

“What are you doing?” I asked. 

 

He looked at me for a split second, then went back to texting. “Reporting back to SHIELD,” he said.

 

Oh. Yeah. Probably a good idea. I found my phone and tapped out a quick text to Nan. She’d be asleep, it was early afternoon back home, but better safe than sorry.

 

Logan’s phone beeped. He looked at it, then at me. “SHIELD is headed for the hotel. They’ll get our stuff and move us to a new location in the morning.” He leaned forward, put his face in his hands, and groaned softly. 

 

I sat down on one of the beds and stretched my legs forward until the toes of my boots touched his foot. He uncovered one eye and looked at me.

 

“You, uh, want to talk about it?” I said.

 

“About how you got up for four seconds and almost got killed?” Logan said, his eyebrow creeping up.

 

“Well, that wasn’t my fault,” I said, “but I actually meant, um, the other thing. In the car.”

 

Logan turned his face back into his hands. “No,” he said, his voice muffled.

 

I sighed. 

 

“Okay,” I said. 

 

When it was clear he wasn’t going to get up, or even move, I stood. Fine. What-fucking-ever. We’d add one more awkward and messed-up interaction to our ever-growing collection of them. “I’m going to take a shower.” 

 

The bathroom was old, the tub stained brown with rust, but the water was hot and at least there was soap. I scrubbed away the grime of the empty lot, the smoke of the casino. I tried extremely hard not to think about how good Logan’s skin had felt under my lips. 

 

Fuck. 

 

I turned off the water and dried myself. I briefly considered just getting into bed naked, but I didn’t think that would exactly make things with Logan more convivial, and plus, this place was pretty grimy. I yanked my filthy leggings back on, hopping to work them over my still-damp skin, and wriggled back into the stupid corset.

 

“I’m coming out. I’m decent,” I announced, wrapping a threadbare towel around my head and opening the door. Logan was lying on one of the beds, his arm over his eyes. 

 

“Hi, I said. 

 

He didn’t answer. Didn’t even move. I dropped onto my bed and reached for a pillow, then tossed it at him. It bounced off his legs and fell to the floor on the other side of the bed. “Hey,” I said. “You okay?”

 

He took his arm off his eyes and looked at me, his expression tired and sad.

 

“How are your wrists?” he said quietly.

 

I looked down at them. They were still shiny-pink—for some reason they were taking  _ forever _ to heal—but they looked better than even an half hour before. “Fine,” I said.

 

He let out a long breath and got up. He came and sat down next to me on the bed. He took my wrist in his fingertips, turning it this way and that, smoothing over the marks on my wrists. 

 

“This is you now, huh,” he said. “Running missions for some covert vampire club. Risking your life.”

 

“Not life, strictly speaking,” I said. He didn’t smile, just kept tracing his fingers over my skin. I shivered. 

 

And then both of us jumped when someone banged on the door.

 

Logan met my gaze, alarm in his eyes. I saw the muscles of his forearms tense. He got up slowly, the claws sliding silently out of his knuckles.

 

“ _ Fuck,” _ I whispered. But surely whoever had snatched me wouldn’t be  _ knocking  _ if they had followed us? 

 

I rolled out of bed and started toward the door. Logan elbowed in front of me, claws out. Whoever it was pounded again. 

 

And then a familiar voice:

 

“ _ Anja _ , damn it, open the door.”


	4. one of us is crying, one of us is lying

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here’s a pretty bad art I did of chapter 3 :)
> 
> http://thejanewestin.tumblr.com/post/178975618232/my-terrible-fanart-of-my-terrible-fanfic-is

I gaped at Logan, unable to believe what I was hearing. Then I darted in front of him to look through the peephole. And saw, to my utter delight—

 

“Pam!” I couldn’t unlatch the deadbolt fast enough. I threw the door open.

 

“What the _fuck_ were you doing,” Pam said, coming into the room and winding one arm around my shoulders. “I felt you _frying_ , you stupid girl.”

 

Eric came in behind her. “You should be flattered,” he said to me, a lazy smile on his face. “I’ve never seen her move like that.”

 

“How’d you get here so fast?” I stepped away from Pam and shut the door behind them.

 

“We’re on _vacation_ ,” Pam said, “which you ruined. Good thing you decided to destruct in Asia instead of back home.”

 

She was wearing a dark red dress that hugged every curve. Her hair was teased out, a gigantic blond cloud softening her high cheekbones and sharp jaw. She looked amazing and I was so happy to see her I could have kissed her right then.

 

“Excuse me.”

 

I looked over. Logan was scowling, his eyebrows pulled low over his eyes.

 

“What the fuck,” he said, “is going on?”

 

Eric looked Logan up and down. “This is him, huh,” he said, one eyebrow raised. He looked unimpressed. “Nice... _claws_.”

 

Logan glared.

 

“Pam is my maker,” I said to Logan. “Eric is hers.”

 

“Glad to see my pretty little granddaughter still has all her skin,” Eric said. He came up behind me and pulled the towel off my head. He put his hands on my elbows, then bent and kissed my neck.

 

Logan’s eyes widened. His nostrils flared. He looked _pissed_.

 

I reached up and put one hand on the back of Eric’s neck. “What are you doing _here_?” I said, turning my face until it was a millimeter from his. And okay, maybe I was enjoying the fact that for once I had the upper hand on Logan. Eric tilted his head and grinned. He always could read me like a book.

 

“I told you.” Pam answered for him. She leaned against the door, arms crossed, somehow managing to look simultaneously irritated and fond. “I felt you. What’d you do, anyway, get trapped in a tanning bed?”

 

I looked away from Eric and glanced at Logan. Logan’s scowl deepened.

 

“Not exactly,” I said carefully.

 

“Oh, God.” Pam’s eyes widened. “This is some Authority bullshit, isn’t it.” She turned around and peered through the peephole.

 

I grimaced. “Maybe.”

 

“Don’t tell me you’re on the _run_.”

 

“I won’t tell you, then,” I said.

 

Pam kicked at the scuffed carpet with a silver-studded Louboutin. “That explains why you’re staying in such a shithole.”

 

Eric wandered to the desk chair and sat down, kicking his feet up onto Logan’s bed. Logan’s gaze followed him and if his expression was a wooden stake, Eric would have exploded in a bloody mess.

 

“I still can’t believe you signed on with the Authority,” Eric said, eyes on me. “After all the crap you went through, I thought you’d stick with bartending.”

 

“She’s a lot more than a _bartender,_ bub,” Logan snapped.

 

Eric and Pam both leveled cold stares at him.

 

I held up both hands. Okay, so I totally was into having Logan and Eric having basically arm-wrestling over me, but I supposed it wasn’t super _productive_. “I liked bartending,” I said quickly. “I am very good at it. Can we change the subject, please?”

 

“Yeah,” Pam said. “Let’s change it to getting you the fuck out of this four-walled staph infection and back to civilization.”

 

Logan tensed. “That’s a bad idea.”

 

“Why?” Eric said. He folded his long fingers over his stomach. “You think you’re safer here? Guy at the desk told me what room you were in even _without_ being glamoured.”

 

I raised my eyebrows at Logan. He looked deeply unhappy, but at last he shrugged.

 

“Fine,” he said grouchily. “Let’s go.”

 

“Thank God,” Pam said. She looked at the room and shuddered. “The sooner the better.”

 

Their car was a black Mercedes coupe, the windows heavily tinted. Eric got into the driver’s seat. “She tried to _run_ here,” he said to me, his eyebrows raised.

 

“Oh, shut up,” Pam said.

 

Logan and I climbed into the small backseat. I was pretty comfortable, sitting behind Pam, but Logan’s knees were practically in his chin.

 

“Hey,” he said to Eric, tapping the seat. “Can you move it up?”

 

Eric looked over his shoulder.

 

“No,” he said.

 

Logan’s jaw tightened and for a second I actually thought he was going to hit Eric. Instead, he looked at me, then shifted his knees toward the middle of the car.

 

I reached my arm around Pam’s seat and put my hand on her shoulder. She made a little exasperated noise, but she reached up and covered my hand with hers.

 

“So _annoying_ ,” she muttered.

 

Eric drove too fast. I got the distinct feeling he was showing off. Every time he took a curve, Logan had to grip the seat. I saw the tiniest grin on Eric’s face.

 

“What are you really doing here?” I asked.

 

There was a long pause. Then Eric said, “We told you. We’re on vacation.”

 

I leaned between the seats and looked at him. “I don’t believe you,” I said.

 

“Don’t care what you believe,” Eric said.

 

I opened my mouth to say something else, but I felt Pam’s hand on my arm. I turned to her. There was a warning in her eyes.

 

“Vacation,” she said.

 

I shut my mouth.

 

“Yeah,” I said.

 

When we got to their hotel—the Four Seasons, on the other side of town from our previous place—Eric elbowed in front of me and waved me off when I tried to pay for our room.

 

“No one’s looking for _me_ ,” he said.

 

I stared at him. He gave me a crooked little smile.

 

Well, that was weird.

 

The room he’d gotten for us was three doors down from theirs, in the vampire wing of the hotel. By the time we got to our room, it was nearly four AM and I was exhausted.

 

“You need clothes,” Pam said.

 

I looked down at myself. My top was ripped. There was dirt crusted on my leggings.

 

“Yeah,” I said.

 

Pam took my arm and steered me away from the door Logan had just opened. I glanced over my shoulder at him and gave him a little shrug.

 

He gave me a black look, went into the room, and shut the door hard.

 

“Nice guy,” Eric said from ahead of me.

 

I scowled at his back. “Lay off him.”

 

Eric unlocked the door to his and Pam’s room and pushed it open. “Did you not tell me he ditched you the second you became human?” he asked.

 

Yeah. Well, there was that.

 

“You should stay with us,” he added, locking the door and bolting it. “That guy...sucks.”

 

“Ha ha,” I said.

 

Pam moved behind me and unzipped my top. “This is disgusting,” she said, tossing it into the trash can. “Take those off. You look like you’ve been,” she curled her lip, “ _muddin_.”

 

I shoved my leggings down and tossed them, and my underwear, into the trash with the corset top. It was from Forever 21 anyway.

 

“Go get in the bath.” Pam pointed to the bathroom. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

 

I went. My chest felt warm. I sat in the oversized tub while it filled, watching the water splash over my pale dead skin. I had been in there less than five minutes when she came into the bathroom and climbed in beside me.

 

“You love me,” I said.

 

“Shut up,” Pam said, her lips at my throat, her hand between my legs.

 

I heard the door open and looked over. Eric’s eyebrows were raised.

 

“No,” Pam said into my neck. “Go away.”

 

Eric made a face. “Hurry up,” he said, and closed the door.

 

Pam kicked me out of the tub afterwards. “Don’t be so _clingy_ ,” she told me, and I laughed against her lips, because she was so mean and I could see right through it. She glared and pushed me off her, then slid under the water. I kissed the top of her head and went into the bedroom.

 

“Took you long enough,” Eric said. He was sprawled in the middle of the king-sized bed completely naked, his cock slung over one thigh like an indolent Persian cat. “I wasn’t sure if Pam was planning on sharing you.”

 

I tossed the towel onto the desk. “I didn’t think you’d care.”

 

“I don’t. Much.” He put his hands behind his head. “Are you going to come here, or what?”

 

“Why don’t you move the fuck over and make some room for her,” Pam said, coming out of the bathroom, toweling her hair dry.

 

“You make her so... _mouthy_ ,” Eric practically purred, grinning. He moved over and pulled the covers back. “I like it.”

 

I climbed into bed. Pam followed, curling her narrow body around me. Four hands on me. His lips on my breast. Her legs twined with mine.

 

 _Home_.

 

***

 

Afterward, Eric said he was starving, and went down to the bar to find a human.

 

“I hope he brings it back up here,” Pam said. She was stroking my hair, an oddly intimate gesture. Usually she got up and dressed immediately after sex, spending almost no time in bed. Tonight, though, she let me rest my head on her stomach and showed no indication that she wanted to be doing anything else.

 

I closed my eyes.

 

“I missed you,” I said.

 

“You’re a sentimental idiot,” Pam said, her fingers still moving gently across my scalp.

 

In that moment, I sort of regretted that I had quit the bar and moved to New Orleans. When I was with her, I felt safe. Accepted. Peaceful. Even though she acted like she couldn’t stand me, like, ninety-eight percent of the time, I knew she loved me.

 

I’d felt like that with Logan, once.

 

I rolled over so I could look at her. Her hair was still damp, her skin pale and lovely in the lamplight. I bumped my fingers over her collarbone.

 

“What are you really doing here?” I asked again.

 

She twisted a strand of my hair around her fingers. “As usual,” she said, rolling her eyes, “it all comes back to Sookie.”

 

“Sookie?” Sookie had never even left the county, let alone jet set to Asia.

 

Pam sounded bored. “Yeah. She disappeared a couple months ago without a trace. Everyone’s got their panties in a twist about it, you know how they are with her.”

 

“I’m not sure I follow,” I said slowly.

 

“Apparently Eric’s got a sister in the Authority,” Pam said. “News to me. She told him two days ago that some crazy mutant in Madripoor was kidnapping faeries, or something. I don’t know.”

 

“So you’re looking for her.”

 

“He is.” Pam rolled her eyes even more extravagantly. “I’m just along for the hotel room.”

 

“What’s this mutant’s name?” I said carefully, and even as the words left my lips I knew I’d gone too far.

 

Pam pulled her hand out of my hair and sat up, adeptly removing my comfortable headrest. She glared at me. “I know you’re not mining me for information,” she said sharply.

 

I propped myself on my elbows and tilted my head, giving her my best puppy eyes. “Maybe,” I said.

 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” She pulled one leg up and planted her foot on my shoulder, then pushed me hard enough to knock me right off the bed.

 

“Hey,” I said grumpily, climbing back in. “That hurt.”

 

“You deserved it,” Pam said coldly. “Taking advantage of my affection. Shame on you.”

 

I scooted up to her, put my head on her shoulder, wrapped my arm around her waist. She looked away.

 

“I wouldn’t be asking if it wasn’t really important,” I said, a little coy, a little plaintive. “Come on, Pam. Pleeeeease.”

 

“Ugh.” She put on a disgusted expression. “You are incredibly obnoxious.”

 

I grinned at her. “Yeah, you like me, though.”

 

“No, I don’t,” she said, but a tiny smile touched the corners of her lips.

 

“Fine,” I said, “don’t tell me, but if his sister’s at the Authority I guarantee I’ll find out who she is.”

 

“I’m sure he’d be pleased as _punch_ to show her off,” Pam said dryly. “Her name’s Nora.”

 

I froze.

 

“Nora Gainesborough?” I asked.

 

“How the fuck should I know,” Pam said, and I would have asked her more, but the electronic lock on the door whirred. The door opened, and a handsome dark-haired man came in.

 

“This is Peter,” Eric said from behind him.

 

The man looked from Pam to me, and the grin on his face got wider. “Hi,” he said.

 

“Great.” Pam walked over and grabbed the man by his shirtfront. “I’m starving.”

 

Eric raised his eyebrows at me. “Anja?”

 

I tripped over my response, still stricken by the possibility that Eric’s sister was my _boss_. “Tru Blood for me tonight,” I said.

 

He narrowed his eyes at me. Then he started to laugh. “You drank him, didn’t you?” he said. “No wonder you aren’t hungry.”

 

I flinched. “I got _silvered_ ,” I said defensively.

 

“Whatever you have to tell yourself.” Eric slapped my bare ass and went over to where Pam was already feeding on Peter. He had his head thrown back as she drank from his throat, a blissful expression on his face.

 

He did look pretty good.

 

“Well,” I said, sidling over to the couch. I reached for Peter’s belt and unbuckled it. “Maybe just a sip.”

 

***

 

It was well after sunup when I got back to my own room. Logan was probably asleep. I opened the door as quietly as possible.

 

One lamp was on, turned down to the dimmest setting. Logan was lying on the small couch, his long legs draped over the armrest, his feet resting on the desk chair. He opened his eyes and sat up when I came in.

 

“Hey Jube—” he said, and then he broke off. His expression darkened. His nostrils flared.

 

“Um.” I closed the door behind me and latched it. “Hi.”

 

His eyebrows were drawn so far down that I could barely see his eyes in the lamplight. He took a step toward me, and then another, until he was six inches from me. He leaned forward and inhaled the air by my left ear.

 

There was a very long, very uncomfortable silence.

 

“Uh, Logan,” I said. “Is there something you need, or...” I trailed off.

 

He _growled_ . Like, a legit, actual growl. Like a _werewolf_ growl. Seventeen years I’d known him and I’d never heard him make a noise like that.

 

“Get what you wanted?” he asked, and it sounded hateful, the way he said it.

 

I looked up at him, my eyes narrowing, feeling the bright flare of fury rekindle in my chest.

 

“And just what the fuck is that supposed to mean?” I asked in a low voice, tipping my face up to him.

 

He was so close that I could feel his breath in my mouth. “I think you know what it means,” he said, his voice just as low and tight with anger.

 

“I know I’m mistaken,” I said through clenched teeth, “because it almost sounds like you’re judging me, and that can’t be right, because you are by _far_ the last person who’s got any right to do that.”

 

His expression turned icy. He snorted and turned away from me. “Just because I think you’re making stupid decisions—”

 

“Oh shut _up,_ ” I snapped, snatching his shirtfront and dragging him back to face me. “You think you get to have an opinion about my life? After what you put me through?”

 

“After what I—” He broke off. “ _You_ took off, Jube.”

 

“I got _kicked out_ of the Mansion!” I exploded, shoving him away from me. “I didn’t have anywhere to _go_ and _where the fuck were you?_ ”

 

He took a step back and opened his mouth, then closed it again. He turned and walked to the window, seeming to shrink in front of my eyes. “I was...I was dealing with something.”

 

Oh fuck no.

 

“ _You?_ ” I said incredulously. “ _You_ were dealing with something? _I got decimated_ , remember? And was fucking _homeless_?” I picked up a pillow and hurled it at him. “It’s not like you were there for any of that.”

 

He looked down at his feet. “I know.”

 

The rage kept coming. I stomped over to him and spun him around to face me. “I didn’t have _anyone_ . I _counted_ on you, do you not understand that? So you don’t get to fucking judge me for having a life, you presumptuous asshole. And you _certainly_ don’t get to judge me for _dying.”_

 

I punctuated this last statement with a hard poke directly to the center of his chest.

 

His hand flew up and caught my wrist. I started to yank it away, but his other hand came up to the back of my neck and pulled me into him.

 

My forehead clunked against his collarbone. I started to reach up, to push him backwards, because _fuck_ you, Logan, you don’t get to just yank me around in the middle of a freaking _haranguing_ —and then I realized what was happening.

 

His hand on my neck tightened, and his breathing was all weird and uneven, and holy shit, was he _crying_?

 

Anger I could deal with. Spite, hatefulness—those were easy. I was ready to fight him. I had eight years of bottled up rage ready to throw in his face. Even his indifference was at least familiar.

 

This, though? This was completely new territory. I’d seen him sad, sure, but I’d never seen him cry. Not once. Not even close. I felt something twist in my stomach, a longing that I’d tried to force down since the moment he’d turned his back on me. He found ways around my every defense. Always had.

 

 _Damn it, Logan._ You manipulative fucking bastard.

 

I gently extracted my wrist from his grip, hesitated, then put my arms around his waist.

 

He put the hand that had been holding my arm on my back, pulling me against him. After a long moment, the weird breathing relaxed into a more human pattern. When he spoke again, his voice was unsteady.

 

“I fucked up, Jube,” he said thickly. He stroked the back of my neck with his thumb. “I should never have left you behind. It’s my fault, what happened with SHIELD. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

 

It was what I had been wanting to hear him say since M-Day. Since that day in the bayou. My chest hurt.

 

“I forgive you,” I said into his shirt, and his whole body did a sort of loosening thing, making me sway with the sudden shift in his weight.

 

I felt him move, felt his lips on the top of my head. His hand on my neck suddenly burned as hot as silver. I realized at that moment exactly how close he was. How the heat from his body warmed me from chest to shins.

 

I pulled back, just a little, just enough to tip my head up and look at him.

 

He met my gaze. His eyes caught the light of the city below. His expression was totally unreadable.

 

I thought of the way he’d looked at me when I’d walked into the room, that moment he realized I’d just fucked Eric and Pam. He’d never looked at me like that before. Jealous. Like he wanted me.

 

Like I was his.

 

I unlocked my arms from around his waist and slowly, carefully reached up to his face. I put my hand on his cheek, my thumb brushing his lower lip. He held my gaze and made a sound, a low rumble, deep in his chest.

 

I slid my other hand to the back of his neck and pulled. He bent down. I stretched up and kissed him lightly on the corner of the mouth.

 

He closed his eyes and groaned softly against my lips.

 

“You always had a way of getting me to forget about being mad at you,” I said.

 

“You’re right about everything,” he said. His voice was rough.

 

I tipped my face up and pulled him down further to press my lips to his forehead.

 

He stroked my cheek. “I missed you.”

 

I pulled away from him and picked up the pillow I’d thrown. I tossed it back against the headboard, flopped onto the bed, rolled onto my back. “You did?” I asked, looking up at the ceiling. My heart felt lighter, hearing him say it. I wanted to hear it again.

 

“Yeah.” He came over and sat down next to me. He put his hand on my arm, his thumb making little circles on my skin. “When they told me you were dead, I...” He looked away. “It messed me up pretty good.”

 

I looked up at the ceiling. _Keep talking_ , I thought. Tell me all these things I’ve been aching to hear since I lost you.

 

“I knew I didn’t have anyone to blame by myself,” he said unsteadily. “If I hadn’t left after M-Day...if you hadn’t joined SHIELD...”

 

I blinked hard.

 

“Doesn’t matter,” I said, passing a hand over my eyes. “It’s done and over.”

 

“It matters,” he said. “I wasn’t there for you when you needed me. It’s my fault you died.” His voice cracked.

 

“It wasn’t your fault,” I said. I stared at the ceiling, willing myself not to cry. “But you really hurt me. I missed you so much I couldn’t see straight. I couldn’t figure out what I’d done to make you stop caring about me.” I felt a lump in my throat, heard my voice clogged with grief. The tears spilled over, dripping down my cheeks into my ears. “You broke my heart, Wolvie.”

 

His fingers tightened on my arm, hard enough to hurt. He nodded. I heard him swallow hard.

 

“All I wanted was for you to know how much I lost when I lost you,” I whispered. I sat up and wiped my eyes.

 

He turned to me then, not even flinching at the red smears on my face. He put his hands on my cheeks. He held my gaze, his expression pleading.

 

“I wish I could take it back, Jube,” he said.

 

My chest hurt. I loved him all over again. So fucking much.

 

Damn it.

 

I reached for him, pulled him toward me, and buried my face in his shoulder. I felt his hands on me, stroking my back, tangling in my hair.

 

I sat up after a moment, wiping my eyes. “I got blood all over your shirt.”

 

“I have other shirts.” He rubbed my knee.

 

I looked at him. He looked exhausted.

 

“You should sleep,” I said. “We both should.”

 

He nodded. “Yeah.” He started to get up, presumably to go back to the couch. I grabbed his arm.

 

“Just—” I pulled him toward me. I suddenly couldn’t bear the thought of him even being across the room from me. “Lie with me, okay?”

 

He looked startled. “What?”

 

“Not like that,” I said, sliding my hand down his arm to his wrist. “I just missed you. That’s all.”

 

I thought he might refuse, sleep on the couch after all, but he just nodded and climbed between the sheets next to me.

 

“Do you want to—” He held out an arm, trepidation on his face.

 

I smiled, ducked under his arm, and put my head on his shoulder. He pulled me against him and sighed into my hair.

 

“Just so you know,” I said, “when I fall asleep...I breathe when I’m awake, you know, sort of out of habit and so I can talk or whatever, but when I sleep I might look sort of—” I made a face. “Dead.”

 

He took a breath and tightened his arm around my shoulders. “Okay,” he said.

 

I closed my eyes, feeling the thump of his heartbeat against my cheek, feeling the warmth of body against mine. For a moment, just the briefest moment, it was as though the past eight years hadn’t happened. I was twenty years old again and had everything I ever wanted.

 

If only.

 


	5. no one to hear my prayer

I woke to the sound of pounding on the door. 

 

“Oh fuck,” I said blearily, “it’s SHIELD.”

 

Logan was already out of bed, heading to the door. I sat up. My head ached and my stomach twisted with familiar nausea.  _ Pam _ . Something was wrong with Pam.

 

“Hang on, hang on,” he mumbled. He looked through the peephole. “Shit.”

 

I darted in front of Logan and threw the door open. Pam was standing there, her face streaked with blood, her expression pure agony.

 

“Eric,” she moaned. “They got Eric.”

 

“Oh my God.” I pulled her inside and shut the door, wrapping my arm around her waist and leading her to the bed. “Sit down.”

 

“This is your fucking fault, you Authority traitor,” she snarled, shoving me away. She sobbed, leaning on the bed, her tears splashing red on the comforter.

 

I flinched backwards, her words piercing my heart like a stake. 

 

“Hey. Let’s take it easy,” Logan said, coming up beside Pam. 

 

“Oh, what do you know,” Pam snapped. “Mutant freak.”

 

“Listen.” Logan took Pam by the arm. She froze, staring at his hand on her arm and then at his face. She looked as though she couldn’t quite believe what was happening.

 

“I don’t like this any more than you do,” he growled in her ear, “but if the Viper really has him, you need us to get him back. So maybe try not to be a complete bitch.”

 

“Who the fuck is the Viper?” Pam wrenched her arm out of Logan’s grasp.

 

He glared at her. “What are you doing in Hightown?” 

 

“ _ God _ .” Pam threw up her hands. “If it weren’t for fucking Sookie—”

 

“Pam,” I said, catching her wrists, “was the person Nora told Eric about named Ophelia Sarkissian?”

 

Pam stopped storming. She looked at me. “Yes.”

 

“What the hell is going on here,” I muttered. I looked up at Logan. He looked grim.

 

“Looks like we’re paying the Viper a visit,” he said.

 

“We should let Fury know,” I said. “And Nan.”

 

Pam stiffened and pulled away. “No,” she said. She wiped her eyes, her expression turning stony. She reached for her phone and showed it to me. It was a text from a blocked number.  _ If you want him back, bring the mutants to Gila tonight. Bring SHIELD and he meets the sun. _

 

I looked at Logan. “They’re saying they’ll kill him if we don’t come alone.”

 

“Bullshit,” Logan said, and in a nanosecond he was flat on his back on the floor, Pam’s hand around his throat. His claws popped out but she was faster than he was—she braced her free hand on one of his arms and a knee on the other.

 

“Listen to me, you metal-brained animal,” she snarled, “my maker’s been taken and we’re doing things  _ my _ way now.”

 

“Pam!” I grabbed her arm. “He can’t breathe.  _ Pam!” _

 

Scowling, she loosened her grip on his neck and let me pull her away from him. He got to his feet slowly, coughing.

 

“You’re a fuckin nutjob,” he managed to say, glaring at Pam.

 

“Hey,” I said. “Can we stop trying to kill each other for two seconds and formulate some kind of plan?”

 

“ _ No _ SHIELD,” Pam said. “And no Authority, either.” She wiped the last blood streaks off her face. “We go to Gila. Alone.”

 

I looked at Logan. He looked at me.

 

“Getting pretty fucking sick of  _ agreeing  _ to shit,” he muttered, but he slid his claws back into his knuckles and shuffled toward the door. 

 

***

 

I held Pam’s hand as we walked into back into Gila, my fingers clamped around hers to keep my shaking at bay. She walked straight up to the bouncer at the VIP door. “We’re here,” she said. “Tell her we’re here.”

 

Four guards with guns were beside us immediately in a whoosh of air. Separating Pam and me, holding Logan’s arms behind him. I heard the snikt of his claws coming out, but they had him pinned. My skin burned and sizzled and I shrieked with the sudden pain of silver at my throat and limbs. 

 

There was a rush of wind in my hair. I flinched at being dragged at vampire speeds, and when I opened my eyes, I was in a dimly lit conference room. Sitting at the head of the table, with the most obnoxiously smug look I’d ever seen on her face, was Ophelia Sarkissian.

 

And she had the nerve to  _ smile  _ at me.

 

“Hello, old friend,” she purred.

 

“Let me go, you crazy bitch _ ,” _ I snarled, straining against the guards. I had been silvered twice in two days and I was getting pretty fucking sick of it. 

 

“Hey,” Pam said beside me, and her voice was so uncharacteristically calm that I stopped fighting and looked over at her.

 

She had her teeth clenched, fangs out, but she wasn’t struggling. She was staring at Ophelia. “Do me a favor and let me go for just one quick sec,” she said, her voice low and lazy. “I promise I’m not going to run.”

 

She narrowed her eyes. “You can run a lot  _ faster _ than I can,” she pointed out. 

 

“True,” Pam said, “but I have a pretty good incentive not to.” She jerked her chin at me. “I just want to calm her down.”

 

Ophelia gave Pam an assessing glance. “Stay away from me,” she said. “I don’t want to have you staked, but I’ll do it if I have to. You’re a lot stronger than I am, Pamela.”

 

Pam’s lips tilted up in a small, grim smile. “You have my word.”

 

Ophelia gave a slow nod and looked at the guards holding Pam. “Let her go,” she said.

 

I heard Pam gasp as the silver was ripped from her skin. Immediately she was in front of me, both hands on my face, hissing in my ear. “You have to  _ calm down. _ I have to find Eric and you are not helping.”

 

I shuddered but stopped struggling. I looked over at Logan. They had forced him into a chair, a blade at his throat, a rag stuffed into his mouth. He looked back at me with eyes that were bordering on panic. He was strong, but he was no match for four vampire guards. 

 

Pam turned back to Ophelia. “Okay, you’ve got our attention. What do you want?”

 

“It’s not  _ what _ I want, darling,” she said, trailing her long nails over her throat and smiling catlike at me, “it’s  _ who _ .”

 

_ “God _ , would it be so hard to just speak plain English?” Pam said, sounding disgusted. “Fine. I’ll bite. Who?” 

 

Ophelia gestured at Pam. “You know you’re quite the special lady,” she said. “Did you know that only three makers are able to turn mutants into vampires?”

 

Oh, you had to be kidding me. This whole misadventure was based on a  _ misunderstanding _ ? Did someone get the  _ dossiers _ confused? “Uh,” I said. “I don’t know where you got your intel, O, but Pam didn’t turn a mutant.”

 

“Oh, sure, she did,” Ophelia said. She leaned back in her chair and crossed one long leg over the other. “I’m looking right at her.” The smile widened.

 

“I got decimated,” I said slowly. I couldn’t quite believe I had to explain my whole situation to an all-powerful HYDRA villain. Like, really? Did she not have  _ people  _ for that? Some faction of dark and mysterious Googlers who could snoop on my Instagram?

 

“Oh, I know,” Ophelia said. “You lost your powers, poor thing. Your DNA didn’t change, though. That little X-gene is still very much there. It just lost its ability to be transcribed.” She stood. Her green dress shimmered an oil-slick rainbow around her legs as she came toward me, one careful stilettoed step at a time.

 

“Back the fuck up, you tacky Poison Ivy knockoff,” Pam growled, stepping in front of me. 

 

“Come now,” Ophelia said, gently pushing past Pam. She reached out and ran one fingertip down my cheek. I snapped at her, fangs out, and Ophelia pulled her hand away. 

 

“You really should calm down,” she said, turning around. She looked back at Pam. “You do have quite a talent. Anyone else with that X-gene—well, you’ve seen what happens when they’re turned.”

 

I stared at her, hardly daring to believe what I was hearing. Was it possible? Could it be true—that I hadn’t been fully human after all, that some tiny piece, some nanoparticle of Jubilation Lee still remained? 

 

“And that makes both of you  _ extremely  _ special,” Ophelia said. She went back to her chair and sat down. “Which leads me to my proposal.”

 

“Not exactly a fair proposal when you have two of us restrained and the other dragged off to God knows where,” I said sharply, jerking my arms against the silver chain.

 

“Oh, please, Jubilation,” Ophelia said. “I have to protect my  _ interests _ . Eric is much stronger than I am, it wouldn’t be  _ fair _ to have him here.”

 

“Fine,” Pam snapped. “Start talking.”

 

Ophelia grinned. “Excellent,” she said. “Care to join me for a drink?”

 

“Are you  _ serious _ ,” Pam said. 

 

Ophelia snapped her fingers, like an actual cartoon bad guy. Out of nowhere, a black-clad young man appeared at her elbow with a tall glass bottle of blood and one of what appeared to be white wine.

 

“O negative, is that all right with you?” She was already pouring. “Jubilation? Can you be trusted to maintain your composure?”

 

I gave her a sullen glare, then looked away and nodded. The guards released my arms and pulled the silver off of me. 

 

“It’s kind of rude not to invite Logan, don’t you think, O?” I said, taking the glass of blood Ophelia held out to me. “I mean, he can’t even  _ talk, _ it’s not really fair.” I forced myself to keep my eyes on her.

 

She rolled her eyes. “Ugh,” she said. “Go ahead and ungag him,” she said to the guards, “but don’t you dare let him up.” She pursed her lips at me. “You have  _ such _ a way of convincing me of things, Jubilation. You always have. I don’t know how you do it.”

 

I lifted the glass and drained it in three gulps, then set it down hard on the table. “Why don’t you quit with the small talk and tell us what the fuck you want,” I said.

 

“All business,” Ophelia murmured, and I out of the corner of my eye saw Logan lunge ineffectively against the guards holding him. I glanced at him, hoping he could see the  _ keep quiet  _ in my expression.

 

Pam’s fangs were out. She was staring at Ophelia with so much hatred it was a miracle Ophelia’s face wasn’t sizzling. 

 

“Hey.” I waved. “Over here, O.”

 

Ophelia looked at me and the second her poison-green gaze met mine I tried it. I had to. 

 

Of course, it came as absolutely zero surprise when a sheet of silver cloth was pulled over my head.

 

“ _ Anja! _ ” Pam screamed at the same time Logan cried “ _ Jube!” _ Pam moved faster than they did, this time, and in a flash she had snatched me out of the guards’ arms and ripped the silver off my face.

 

“Freeze,” barked one of them. I realized, prying my eyelids open, that they all had their guns trained on us. Logan was half-standing as they struggled to force him back into his chair. His eyes were wild with rage. 

 

“UV bullets,” Ophelia said smoothly, sipping her wine. “That was foolish, Jubilation.”

 

Pam’s arms tightened around me. 

 

I shrugged, trying to play it off. “I had to try, didn’t I?” I said. I looked at the guards. “No more glamouring, O. Promise.”

 

“You  _ just _ broke that promise,” she said sharply.

 

“Ah ah,” I said, waving a finger at her. “Pam promised we wouldn’t attack you. No one said anything about glamouring.”

 

Ophelia’s red lips split in a delighted grin. “Why, you’re absolutely right,” she said. “My mistake.” The grin turned icy. “But I  _ will _ have you shot if you try that again.”

 

“Fine,” I said grumpily. “You gonna let us get up, or what?”

 

She nodded. The guards reholstered their weapons. Pam stood up and pulled me to my feet. She kept her hand in mine. 

 

“Maybe quit throwing silver at us, you psychotic bitch,” Pam said, her voice filled with hate. 

 

“Maybe quit trying to fight me and I will,” Ophelia retorted sharply.

 

“We’re done,” I said. “No more. Just tell us what you want.”

 

“ _ Finally _ .” Ophelia stood up and set the wine glass down. She smiled, a slow, scary, definitely evil smile.

 

“What I want,” she said, “is control of the Authority.”

 

I stared at her.

 

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Pam said. Her fingers tightened around mine and she stepped in front of me, putting herself between me and Ophelia. 

 

“You.” Ophelia pointed at Pam with one long red nail. “You’re going to turn more mutants.”

 

“The fuck I am,” Pam snarled. At once, two guards grabbed her arms. She shrieked as they looped silver once more around her throat and limbs.

 

“If you don’t,” Ophelia said to her, her voice low and threatening, “your maker gets a hell of a sunburn.” She turned her gaze to me. “As for you...”

 

“What?” I said, snorting, despite the panic I felt rising in my chest. “You want me to stage a one-woman coup at the Authority? I don’t have that kind of firepower.”

 

“Of course you don’t,” Ophelia said. “Not yet. But I have a little present for you.” She pointed at a projector in the corner of the room and suddenly everything went dark.

 

“What the fuck—” I started.

 

The back wall was illuminated, then, with moving images. A video of a dark-haired man, a vampire, shirtless and strapped to a chair. Fangs out. There was no sound, but he was clearly screaming. An IV dripped something bright green into his arm. 

 

The man threw his head back, silently howling, and his skin began to  _ glow _ . Like, actual glowing. Like a light bulb was embedded in his body. 

 

And then he went limp.

 

“What the fuck am I watching?” I finished. 

 

“Just wait,” Ophelia said quietly.

 

The man’s eyes opened. 

 

His fangs were still out. He was clearly still a vampire. 

 

But now he had scales all over his body.

 

The words died in my throat. My chest felt like it was going to explode. 

 

“You—” I whispered. “Oh my God. What did you  _ do _ ?”

 

I looked at Logan. He was staring not at the screen, but at me. 

 

“You reactivated his mutation,” Logan said. He turned his gaze from me to Ophelia, frank disbelief on his face.

 

Ophelia looked like that cat that got the canary. “We  _ did _ ,” she said happily. “We really, really did.”

 

“And how many times did that little experiment fail?” I asked. I felt sick.

 

“Don’t you worry your pretty little head about that,” Ophelia said. 

 

“No fucking way,” Pam said. “No fucking way are you doing that to her.”

 

“Oh, Pamela.” Ophelia cocked her head. “You have no room to negotiate, but it’s absolutely  _ adorable _ that you think you get a say.” She snapped her fingers, and the lights came back on.

 

“Think of it, Jubilation,” she said, picking her wine glass up and taking a sip. “All your powers—your  _ life _ —you could have it again. No strings attached.” She chuckled. “Well, except the one.”

 

For a moment I couldn’t speak. This was fucking  _ unconscionable _ , it was horrific, it was grotesque—and yet— 

 

My old life—before M-Day, before the bullet—snaked its tentacles from the past and wrapped them around my throat. I remembered how it felt to pull energy from the very air around me, the way it coursed hot and bright through my every atom and coalesced in the palms of my hands. I remembered the sweet surge of light from my fingertips, the fierce triumph when my fireworks found their target. Would I trade immortality to have that back, if I had the chance? 

 

You fucking bet I would.

 

“Don’t,” Logan growled.

 

I looked at him. 

 

“It’s not the same.” His eyes were pleading. “It won’t be the same, Jube. You’ll still be a vampire.”

 

“And just  _ think _ what you’ll be able to do!” Ophelia crowed. “You’ll be  _ invincible _ , Jubilation.”

 

“A deadly weapon,” I said softly.

 

“Yes!” Ophelia threw her head back, her slim pale shoulders lifting joyously. “The perfect weapon to infiltrate the Authority and kill that bitch Nan Flanagan and her megalomaniac puppet master.” 

 

I stared at her. “Roman is five hundred years old,” I said. “Nan is over  _ eight _ . They can fucking  _ fly _ .”

 

Ophelia stopped smiling and leveled her gaze at me. “And you can detonate matter at an atomic level,” she said in a low voice. “So forgive me if I don’t think you need to fly.”

 

I remembered Hunter Brawn. I remembered the warehouse. 

 

I remembered the mushroom cloud.

 

My fingers itched and tingled. I used to feel those phantom plasma bursts when I was first depowered. I hadn’t felt them for a long, long time.

 

“Jube.” Logan’s voice, quiet and desperate. “It could kill you.”

 

It could, sure.

 

But it might not.

 

If I got my powers back—if I had them  _ and _ I could heal—

 

“And don’t even think about turning on  _ me _ ,” Ophelia said, a sharp tone of warning creeping into her voice. “Because if you  _ don’t _ kill Flanagan and Zimojic, if you decide to do something silly—” She pointed at Pam. “I stake this one, and I rip the adamantium out of that one.”

 

The very thought of Pam being staked made my stomach feel as though it was turning inside out. 

 

And Logan—

 

“I just need a minute to think,” I said.

 

Ophelia laughed, high-pitched and mirthful. “Oh, that’s funny,” she said. “You misunderstand, Jubilation. I’m not giving you a  _ choice _ .” 

 

She reached into a pocket in her gown and pulled out a small silver capsule on a chain. She walked toward Pam, unscrewing the capsule. 

 

She made a quick movement with her hands and then there was a bright patch of light on Pam’s face. Immediately the skin beneath it turned red and began to smoke. Pam screamed. 

So did I.

 

At once, the bright light vanished, hidden once more behind Ophelia’s long fingers. 

 

“You fucking cunt,” Pam gasped, blood tears streaking down her cheeks.

 

“Pure UV light,” Ophelia said softly, recapping the capsule and dropping it back into her dress. “A marvel of engineering, that we made it this portable and user-friendly. You should see the version we shoot out of a gun.” She smiled. 

 

She nodded to the guards, who surrounded me but didn’t touch me. 

 

“You can go willingly,” she said, her smile cold and snakelike, “or we see if we can polka-dot your maker’s pretty little face here before she heals.”

 

My mind was racing, one million thoughts, one million plans that would fail. 

 

“Anja.” Pam was crying now, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t from pain. “ _ Don’t. _ ”

 

I looked at her. My heart felt like it was breaking all over again.

 

“I’ll do it,” I said.

 


	6. why did it have to be me?

The guards walked me down a long corridor to a steel door with a pressure lock as though the room was in a submarine. It took me all of three seconds to realize why. They were reactivating mutations that, like mine, could affect atomic matter. Any one of the mutants they experimented on might blow the whole place. Pam’s screams for me echoed in my ears. I felt dizzy and sick, the taste of my own blood in my throat. I’d never been forcefully separated from her before. 

 

One of the guards opened the pressure door. Behind it was a sterile white room, a single steel chair in the center, bolted to the floor. There was an IV pole attached to the chair.

 

“Sit,” he said, and for the first time I noticed his yellow cat-eyes. 

 

“You’re one of them,” I said softly. 

 

His expression didn’t change. “ _ Sit _ ,” he said again, more forcefully this time.

 

I sat. 

 

“Give me your arm,” another guard said, reaching for my hand. I flinched as she wrapped her fingers around my wrist. My skin was still blistered from the silver.

 

She placed an IV and hooked me up to a syringe of poisonous-looking green liquid.

 

“When we leave,” she said, “you just push this yellow button, and the infusion will start.”

 

“I have to give my own medication?” I said. “This is terrible customer service.”

 

She gave me a blank look, then turned and stepped back through the door. A second later, it slammed shut, and I heard them turn the wheel. My ears popped. 

 

I looked at the syringe. It was the same acid green as Ophelia’s dress. 

 

“Fuck,” I said, and pushed the button.

 

***

 

I thought I knew what it meant to be cold, now that I was dead. 

 

I had never felt cold like this.

 

The serum hit my veins and I screamed. It felt like my whole arm was being frozen off, the nerves cracking and shattering. The cold spread through my chest, my neck, my face. All I knew was the cold. Agony.

 

My body was exploding. This was the True Death. There was nothing after this, nothing at all.

 

The world went dark.

 

***

 

I woke up, so that, at least, was a good thing.

 

I tried to open my eyes and pain shot through my head. I hadn’t felt this bad since I’d first been turned. I was  _ starving _ . 

 

“Open your mouth.” 

 

Impossibly, it was Logan’s voice.

 

I cracked one eyelid and tried to move. A wave of nausea hit me and I gagged. 

 

“Am I dead?” I croaked.

 

“No.” I felt his hands on me, warm against my skin. “Open your mouth,” he said again.

 

I hoped he had some Tru Blood, because I felt like absolute shit. I could feel blood trickling out of my ears and nose. I opened my mouth.

 

I heard the soft snikt of his claws, and then his blood hit my tongue.

 

I let out a moan of relief. He pressed his wrist to my lips and I and reached up blindly, ignoring the icy pain that shot through my head. I wrapped my hands around his arm and drank without thought for his safety, without even really registering that he was attached to the wrist that was feeding me. I felt the wound start to close and I bit him. He flinched.

 

“Jube,” he said after a moment, but I was so  _ hungry _ . 

 

I was dimly aware of his hand on my face. “ _ Jube _ ,” he said again, more urgently this time, and I realized that his pulse had picked up way more than it should have.

 

Shit. I’d had too much. I opened my eyes and released his arm.

 

He looked pale and worried and more than a little ill. He was lying beside me, crowded against me in a bed that was much too small for two people.

 

“I’m sorry,” I gasped. I tried to sit up and my head spun. “Oh my God. What did she do to me?”

 

“I don’t—” Logan’s voice was weak. “I don’t know, Jube.”

 

Oh, damn it, I’d really messed him up. His skin was as white as the sheets. I bit my wrist. “Here.”

 

He looked at it, at me. “What’s this?”

 

“Heal you up,” I said.

 

He gazed at me for a moment, then gently took my wrist in his fingertips and pressed his lips to the bite. In less than ten seconds his skin was pink again, his eyes bright. I could hear his heartbeat slow to normal.

 

He was breathing hard, and I felt a weird, unfamiliar prickle behind my eyes that I suddenly realized was  _ him _ . I’d never let a human drink from me before. And it had been a very long time since I’d had anyone besides Pam in my head.

 

“You’ll be all right,” I said uncertainly. I had seen humans on V. Maybe I’d made a mistake. He’d have healed on his own in time. 

 

He closed his eyes and let go of my arm. I could feel the tension in his body, energy humming through every muscle. He put his hand on my stomach and I jumped at the sudden contact.

 

“Logan?” Shit, shit, shit. I didn’t know what vampire blood did to mutants. Oh God, what if it had the same effect as being turned? Had I killed him? 

 

I rolled, putting my hand on his face. “Logan,” I said again, urgently.

 

He opened his eyes and stared at me.

 

And then he grinned.

 

“Jube,” he said. “I feel  _ great _ .”

 

I dropped my hand.  _ “ _ Jesus,” I said. “I thought I killed you.”

 

He shook himself, a full-body shudder. “Give a guy some warning next time,” he said. He sat up. “Are you okay?”

 

I stretched my legs experimentally. The icy pain was gone. I was still dizzy, still nauseated, but I no longer felt as though I was actively dying.

 

“I...think so?” I said. I tried sitting up, too, and had to lie back down when the world started spinning.

 

“Easy.” He pulled my head into his lap and stroked my hair. “You’ve been out for three days.”

 

Three days. No wonder I felt terrible.

 

It came back to me, then, what Ophelia had done. I looked at my hands, then at Logan. I stretched one arm toward the silver door of the cell we were in, and I reached back into my memory, and I  _ pulled _ the air around me.

 

Instantly, icy pain shot through my body and I shut my eyes and shrieked, curling into myself. The second I stopped trying to blast the door, the pain vanished. 

 

Logan was grabbing at me, rolling me onto my back. “Jube!”

 

“I’m okay. I’m okay.” I pushed his hands away. That terrible clawing hunger was back, as though the effort had taken every ounce of energy I’d gleaned from his blood. “I don’t think I can do that again.”

 

“No kidding.” His eyes were wide and alarmed. 

 

“Guess it didn’t work,” I said, and I suddenly felt like crying. 

 

He stared at me. “Didn’t work?” he said. “Did you not see that flash?”

 

I stared back. “Flash?”

 

He pointed. There, in the middle of the cell door, was a blackened starburst. 

 

I stood up, staring. “Holy shit,” I said softly. I sat up and leaned to touch the ash, and yelped and jumped backward when my fingertips brushed the door. 

 

“Fucking silver everything,” I muttered crossly, shaking my burned hand. Then I looked up at Logan. “I did that?” I said.

 

He raised an eyebrow. “Yeah,” he said. “And it looked like it almost killed you.”

 

I felt more blood trickle out of my ear. I wiped it away, making a face. “I don’t suppose that sociopath left any Tru Blood in this cell.”

 

Logan tucked the corner of his mouth in. “Just me,” he said. 

 

“Yeah, that’s not happening again.” I lay back down and rubbed my temples. “I almost drained you.”

 

“I wouldn’t have let you.” He patted my knee and gave me a small smile. “You can have a top off.” 

 

“You’re not my personal cafeteria.” 

 

“And you’ll be sick if you don’t eat,” Logan said. He raised his eyebrows.

 

“She can’t keep us in here forever,” I said. “Where are Pam and Eric?”

 

Logan shook his head. “Dunno,” he said. “Someone brings me food a few times a day. They shut the lights off for a few hours at a time. She came down here right after they brought you, said you could come out when you were ready to fly back to Louisiana.”

 

“Whatever that means,” I said. My head throbbed. “You have to get out of here, Wolvie.”

 

He huffed a little half-chuckle. “Right.”

 

“I’m serious.” I propped myself on one elbow. “What are you even still doing here?”

 

“For one thing,” Logan said, “that door is silver-plated adamantium. Made special for the two of us, it seems.” He stood up, stretched, walked the length of the cell. 

 

When he didn’t continue, I said, “And...?”

 

He cleared his throat. “And she told me that if you didn’t drink my blood, you weren’t going to get anything.”

 

“And you believed that?” I said incredulously. There was no way Ophelia would let me  _ starve,  _ and even if she did, it wouldn’t  _ kill _ me. 

 

“Look.” Logan turned around, looking suddenly angry. “I didn’t know what she did to you, and I sure as shit wasn’t going to go on the run with you as sick as you were, all right?”

 

“You should’ve left me,” I muttered.  _ You never had a problem doing that before _ .

 

Logan looked away. “Made that mistake once,” he said quietly. “I’m not making it again.” He pushed away from the door and came back over to me. “You ready to eat?”

 

I looked up at him. He was tired, and worried, and he was wearing the same clothes he’d been wearing when we were at the hotel. He wasn’t going to leave. And he was trying his hardest to take care of me.

 

It wouldn’t kill me to starve. But I wouldn’t be able to do much to help our situation, either.

 

“Yeah,” I said.

 

He nodded and sat down next to me. I pushed myself up, closing my eyes against the spins, and as gently as I could, I pressed my teeth to his throat and bit. This time I was careful. When I felt his heart rate start to pick up, I pulled away and wiped my mouth.

 

“You okay?” I said.

 

He nodded, eyes closed. He had such an odd look on his face—weirdly calm, almost placid. He leaned against the wall and put his hand on the back of my neck. “You get enough?” he said, and his voice had that same strange calmness.

 

I didn’t feel sick any longer, and although I was definitely still hungry, my head wasn’t spinning. “Yeah,” I said.

 

I stood up, supporting myself on his shoulder. “Nice place they put us in,” I said. It was maybe ten feet by ten feet, with the silver door and a tiny silver-barred window that looked into an empty white hallway. There was a bathroom stall with a toilet and shower in the corner of the cell. The bed was a little bigger than twin. I looked up at the overhead lights and shuddered. We had lights like those at the Authority, and they could emit UV rays. If they wanted to fry me in here, they’d undoubtedly be able to do it.

 

“She’s really going to do it,” I said softly. “She really wants to use me to try to take down Roman.”

 

Even saying it out loud made me feel ill with terror. Roman was literally a hundred times older than I was. It would take more effort for him to pick a booger than it would for him to kill me. What was in it for her, anyway? She wasn’t a Sanguinista, she was just a club owner with a penchant for villainy.

 

Logan wasn’t saying anything. I turned around. He was still sitting on the bed, watching me.

 

“Please tell me you have a plan,” I said. “Because I’m sort of at a loss here.”

 

“Wish I did,” he said. He patted the bed next to him. “Sit down.”

 

“I’m, like, counting down the days to my doom,” I said. “I can’t just  _ chill _ .”

 

“Jube.” He got up and gently took me by the shoulders. “You still look like you’re going to fall over. Sit down. She’s not sending you anywhere like this. You’re not strong enough and she knows it.”

 

I let him lead me back over to the bed and leaned against him. “I’m fucked,” I said.

 

He put his hand in my hair and pulled my head down to his shoulder. “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not.”

 

I closed my eyes, feeling him solid and warm against my side, his arm around me. I had been so angry at him for so long. Hated him, even. And hating him was like putting on a sweater, easy on, and it felt comfortable and good and right, but it took half a minute and he was pulling it over my head and tossing it onto the floor. 

 

Damn it.

 

I felt his long fingers moving, tangling in my hair, his nails lightly scratching my scalp. I felt him breathing. Felt his heart beating, beating, beating. He wanted to say something. I could almost hear him forming the question in his mind.

 

“How did it happen?” he said finally.

 

I knew what he meant, of course. I’d been asked the question before, by humans who didn’t realize how deeply personal it was. I’d never answered it before now. I wanted him to know. 

 

“I thought you might have read the SHIELD report,” I said. 

 

His breathing did a funny little skipping-thing. He shook his head. “No,” he said. “I couldn’t.”

 

I looked at my hands. The red polish on my thumbnail was chipped and I picked at it, sending tiny scarlet flakes floating to the floor. 

 

“It wasn’t even an important mission,” I said. “I went to Louisiana because there was a rumor that vampires were being targeted by something supernatural.” 

 

It had been a witch. She’d cast a spell on Eric that wiped his memory, turning him into a six-four golden retriever, basically, and one on Pam that had all but melted her face off. Fury had sent me with Daisy, the Inhuman vampire liaison. But Daisy, with her quick temper, fell out with some local hillbillies in our second week there, and so it hadn’t even been the witch that had killed me.

 

“It was worse than you thought?” Logan said.

 

I shook my head. “My partner got into it with some rednecks. They didn’t need much of a reason to shoot. Eric was...he wasn’t in his right mind. They aimed at him. I got in the way.” 

 

I felt Logan pull me closer. He turned his head and put his face in my hair. 

 

“It didn’t hurt, dying,” I said. “I mean, the getting shot part hurt. But the actual dying...It was like falling asleep. Pam showed up right after. Just in time, I think.”

 

She wouldn’t have turned me if I’d saved anyone but Eric. I was pretty sure of that.

 

I waited. I could always tell when he wanted to say something. Then: “Why didn’t you tell anyone you were alive?”

 

Now I heard pain in his voice. Clear and sharp and unmistakable. 

 

I pulled away from him and stood up. I walked as far away from him as the little room would allow and wrapped my arms around myself.

 

“I didn’t have anyone,” I said softly. “And then, when I woke up, I did.”

 

He was silent. I felt my eyes burn with tears. I remembered Pam pulling me out of the dirt, remembered the agony and bone-deep cold. She’d been with me while I learned how to exist in my new body, with its needs and aches and roaring hunger. She’d taught me how to live. I’d had no one, and then I had her. 

 

“You don’t know what it’s like.” My voice caught. “To be so lonely, and then all of a sudden to have someone you’re bonded to  _ forever _ . Someone who will never leave you. Who loves you no matter what. Who  _ has  _ to love you.” I wiped my eyes.

 

I heard Logan swallow hard. I heard him shift on the bed. When he spoke again, his voice was so quiet I could barely hear him.

 

“Yes, I do,” he said.

 

I turned around.

 

“Don’t,” I whispered.

 

“I didn’t want it to be you, Jube,” he said hoarsely. His eyes were bright, his face wrought with pain. “You were a  _ kid _ when you found me. You were so young—and you lost so much—I wasn’t any good for you.”

 

“You left,” I said carefully, trying very hard to keep my voice controlled, “because you thought you weren’t good for me?”

 

He looked down. He didn’t answer.

 

I took a step toward him, and then another, and another, until I was standing directly in front of him. I reached forward and gently took his chin in my hand, tipping his head up so his gaze met mine. Blood tears burned my eyes, but they didn’t fall. “That is,” I said quietly, locking my gaze with his, “without a doubt, the most selfish fucking thing I’ve ever heard.”

 

He flinched as though I’d struck him. 

 

“You better say something else real fast,” I said, releasing his chin and straightening up. I felt sick. 

 

He didn’t look away this time.

 

“Jube,” he said, “I left because I was in love with you.”

 

I froze.

 

“Fuck you,” I said when I could finally talk. I turned my back on him.

 

“That’s what I was dealing with,” he said from behind me, and I could hear the agony in his voice. “Being in love with a twenty-year-old. Who I’d met when she was  _ thirteen _ .” 

 

I leaned on the wall and closed my eyes. 

 

“I’m ten times your age, Jube,” he said. He sounded like he was choking on his words. “How could I—what kind of man—”

 

He broke off. 

 

When I turned around, he had his head in his hands. I’d never seen him look so broken.

 

I understood shame. Oh, I understood it more than he’d ever know. I knew what it felt like to hate the very essence of yourself. To want to kill the part of you that made you who you were. 

 

I lived with it every goddamn day.

 

I went to him, put my hands on his shoulders, and pulled him against me. His hands came up, fists curling in the fabric of my shirt. He pressed his face into my stomach. I could feel him shaking.

 

“It was a long time ago,” I said quietly. “I can forgive you, Logan. Can you forgive yourself?”

 

He didn’t reply.

 

I moved my hand to his head, feeling suddenly gentle, feeling the last knots of anger in my heart loosen and unravel. It might be another excuse.

 

But if it was true... 

 

I threaded my fingers in his hair, then dropped to my knees in front of him. He lifted his head but didn’t meet my gaze.

 

“I never stopped loving you,” I said. 

 

He did look at me, then. I thought he was going to say something. But instead, he brought his hand to my face. He brushed his thumb over my cheek. 

 

I didn’t want to kiss him with blood in my hair, in the same clothes I’d been in for days, trapped in a prison cell in a crazy person’s basement. But sometimes you take what you can get. And I’d been waiting a long fucking time for this.

 

So, of course, Ophelia picked that precise moment to appear in the hall.


	7. couldn't escape if i wanted to

“Well isn’t this sweet,” Ophelia said, at the same time I stood up and spun around. 

 

“Great timing, asshole,” I snapped.

 

“Nice to see you’re awake.” She slid the tray she was carrying through a slot in the silver cell door. “Here you go, Logan. Sorry to ruin your little tête-à-tête.”

 

“I just bet you are,” I growled through gritted teeth.

 

“How are you feeling, Jubilation, darling?” She leaned her forehead against the bars of the little window and smiled at me. “Up for doing some damage?”

 

“You wish,” I said.

 

“Saw your little spark,” she said. “It looks like you might need a little longer to really feel a hundred percent, but what do I know?”

 

“You’re watching us, too, huh,” Logan said. “Why am I not surprised.”

 

“Would I be any kind of scientist if I wasn’t?” Ophelia said. She beckoned to me. “Come here, Jubilation.”

 

“No thanks,” I said, glaring.

 

“Don’t be tedious.” Ophelia’s smile tightened. “I was kind enough to let you keep your pet with you, but I reserve the right to revoke that privilege. I need your blood.”

 

“Jube.” Logan stood and put his hands on my shoulders. “Give the lady what she asked for.”

 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I said incredulously. “Et tu, Wolvie?”

 

“It’s not us I’m worried about,” he mumbled in my ear, and nodded at the silver-tipped wooden stake she had holstered at her hip.

 

“If she stakes them, she’s got no leverage,” I said, looking at Ophelia, “do you, O?”

 

The smile turned into a snarl. “Suit yourself,” she said, and smacked the wall outside the cell, and suddenly I was burning.

 

I shrieked and hit the floor, burying my face in my hands, but I could feel my arms and the back of my neck start to sizzle. In an instant Logan was on top of me, so heavy I felt like I was being crushed, but at least that was better than frying. 

 

“What the fuck,” he yelled. “Turn ‘em off. She’ll give you the blood.  _ Turn them off _ .”

 

I heard her smack the wall again, and the buzz of the UV lights ceased. 

 

“Just give her what she wants,” Logan murmured into my ear. He shifted a little, exposing a little of my arm, and when I didn’t flinch or cry out, he got up. 

 

“Smart man,” Ophelia said. “I can see why you keep him around.”

 

I unfolded from my crouch on the floor. Logan reached down and pulled me to my feet. He kept his arm around my waist. 

 

“Give her the blood,” he said.

 

“This is not making me like you any better,” I told him, and stuck my hand out.

 

She reached through the window bars, seizing my wrist with more force than I thought was totally necessary, and jabbed a needle basically at random into my skin. Not surprisingly, she didn’t get a drop in her Vacutainer.

 

“If you were a vampire, you’d starve,” I said crossly. “Give me that.” I snatched the tube out of her hand, plucked the rubber stopper out of the top, and bit my wrist. I dripped blood into the tube until it was nearly full. 

 

“Here,” I said, recapping the tube and tossing it at her.

 

She caught it—barely. 

 

“Obliged,” she said, and for the first time she let the grinning evil genius mask slip. She looked down at the blood, then back at me with pure venom. 

 

My mouth fell open. “Holy shit,” I said. “You’re  _ jealous _ .”

 

“I beg your pardon.” Ophelia narrowed her eyes at me. 

 

“You are!” I pointed at her. “You don’t want control of the Authority at all, do you?”

 

“Jube.” Logan’s hand closed around my upper arm. 

 

I swung to face him, throwing my hands in the air. “It makes total sense. She wants the Sanguinistas to take power so she can figure out how to become a vampire. That’s why she’s reactivating us. They get mutant vampires, she gets eternal life.” 

 

“Ha!” Ophelia slapped her hand against the bars. She laughed, but I saw the fury in her eyes. I was going to get her to crack if it killed me. “Think you’re smart,” she added. She was gripping the tube of blood so tightly her knuckles were white.

 

“I’m right.” I turned back to her. I put my hands up, hovering them close enough to the silver that I could feel its heat on my skin. “That’s why you’re taking my blood, isn’t it. Why you’re finding all the makers who can turn mutants. You want what we’ve got.”

 

“I don’t think I need to entertain your insane theories, Jubilation,” Ophelia said thinly. Her narrow shoulders were tensed, her collarbones jutting. She turned around and started back toward the door at the end of the hall. Her heels clacked on the tile. 

 

“Feed,” she snapped over her shoulder, “and get stronger. You’re leaving for New Orleans in thirty-six hours.”

 

The door slammed shut, echoing down the hall.

 

As soon as she was gone, Logan took my arm again. He spun me around to face him. “What the fuck was that?” he demanded.

 

“Hey.” I shook him off. “I got under her skin, didn’t I? Ten years we’ve been trying to get to her and I just did. You should be congratulating me.”

 

“She’s insane,” he said. “All you’re doing is putting yourself in more danger.”

 

“ _ More _ danger?” I hooted. “That’s a laugh. I’m going to end up a bloody muck-puddle in a day and a half. Not much I can do to make that worse.”

 

Logan grabbed my head with both hands and put his face right up next to mine. “That is  _ not  _  happening,” he growled.

 

“Dude.” I grimaced. “Have you gone soft? You’ve never rolled over for any of these two-bit bad guys before.”

 

His expression went flat. He let go of my face and turned around. 

 

“It ain’t like that,” he said gruffly.

 

“Yeah?” I said. “Then what is it like, because from where I’m standing it looks like you’re ready to hand the Viper whatever she wants.”

 

Logan sighed. He sat down on the little bed. 

 

After what felt like a full five minutes of silence, I sat down next to him and reached over to take his hand. 

 

This was how it always had been. We’d fight. He’d run. I’d chase him and hate myself for it. Lather, rinse, repeat. 

 

He looked down. My fingers were laced with his, his palm hot against mine. 

 

“You’ve never held my hand before,” he said, and his voice was quiet now, almost bemused.

 

I looked at him. “What? Of course I have.”

 

“No.” He was still looking at our intertwined fingers. 

 

Oh my  _ God _ he was frustrating, but I wasn’t about to argue the incidences of hand-holding with him. I started to pull away and he tightened his grip. 

 

“I’m sorry,” he said. 

 

Well, that was a surprise. 

 

“Um, okay,” I said, and now it was my turn for bemusement. 

 

He pulled my hand into his lap. “I saw how it hurt you when she was torturing Pam,” he said finally.

 

“That’s just—” I stopped. How could I explain the bond between maker and progeny? How could I express in words what it was like to feel what she felt? 

 

“I don’t know how to protect you,” he said.

 

“Logan.” I squeezed his fingers. “I don’t need protection.”

 

He looked at me. 

 

“I can’t lose you again,” he said.

 

Okay. I admit it was a little difficult, after eight years of thinking that he didn’t give a shit whether or not I was still on the face of the planet, to believe that he cared so much about me that he was trying to  _ reconfigure  _ his  _ entire offensive strategy _ to keep me out of harm’s way. That, and the fact that he had literally  _ just _ told me he hightailed it out of my life because he’d fallen in love with me. 

 

“I’m having kind of a hard time keeping up with you,” I said. I pulled my hand out of his, but there was nowhere to go to get away from him, so I just sort of turned my back on him and pulled my knees up to my chest. 

 

I felt him move a little, and then his hand was on my shoulder. “Hey,” he said. “Will you look at me?”

 

It was weird, not being the one doing the chasing. I turned my head and looked at him out of the corner of my eye. “Okay.”

 

I heard his soft huff, saw his lips curl in a little smile. “Maybe without your back completely turned?”

 

I swiveled around and faced him cross-legged, my knees against his thigh. I looked at him, eyebrows raised.

 

“Listen,” he said, taking my hand again. “I just need you to get out of here in one piece. And that means Pam and Eric too. I can see what they mean to you.” He paused. “What she means to you.”

 

“They’re my family,” I said. 

 

He nodded. “I know.”

 

I raised my eyebrows. “So what do you propose we do?” 

 

He rubbed my hand between both of his, as though he was trying to warm it. “We wait until she comes to get you,” he said, “and then you blast and I slice. And that’s about it.”

 

I started to laugh. “Just like the old days.”

 

His eyes crinkled. “Just like the old days,” he said.

 

***


	8. she's just my kind of girl, she makes me feel fine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is really more like chapter 7.5, because honestly you've made it through like 20,000 words and you deserve a sex scene. If you want to skip it, it literally adds nothing to the story :)

  
  


I kept my back turned while Logan ate his dinner. As much as I’d missed him, human food made me want to puke. When he’d finished, he tapped my shoulder and offered his neck.

 

“Yeah.” I glanced at the ceiling. It was shiny and white, not corrugated metal like the walls, and I suspected the cameras were hidden there. “Uh...it’s kind of messy, can we go in the bathroom?”

 

To his credit, he didn’t even blink at my request, just got up and followed me into the little bathroom. I turned the shower on. I had hoped he understood where I was going with this, but his eyebrows shot up when I stripped off my clothes.

 

“Shut up,” I mouthed, opening the shower door, “and get in.”

 

It was a very, very, very small shower.

 

I stood with my stomach and chest pressed against the shower wall, trying to preserve some modicum of decorum. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I was fucking  _ thrilled  _ to be naked in a shower with Logan, but as romantic scenarios went, this one left something to be desired.

 

He got in. I could feel the heat of his body, could hear his heart hammering. I closed my eyes. The circumstances were shit but I felt how much he wanted me.

 

“I assume we’re in here to talk without being overheard,” he murmured in my ear. His lips barely brushed my skin and I shuddered.

 

“Um.” I could barely get the words out. “That was the idea, yeah. Although now that it’s actually happening, I’ve completely forgotten what I was going to say.”

 

“You—” His breathing came fast and shallow. “You want to turn around?”

 

I closed my eyes and turned.

 

I heard his low hiss when I faced him. I kept my eyes shut. 

 

“I know we’re in dire straits,” I said, my palms flat on the wall behind me, “but I’m really feeling a distinctly end-of-the-world-and-I-don’t-want-to-die-a-virgin energy here.”

 

Logan’s chuckle was low and intimate. “So that’s what it is,” he said. “Couldn’t put my finger on it.”

 

“We’re supposed to be planning our escape,” I said faintly, feeling sort of like I was going to keel over from sheer desire. The lack of visual input, combined with the water hitting my face, was making me feel strange and dissociated.

 

“Can I touch you?” he said, and I almost  _ did  _ fall over then, because his voice was hot and urgent and he sounded as though he was having trouble controlling himself. And the fact that that was because of  _ me— _ well, that was about as much of a self-esteem boost as I’d ever had.

 

“Yes,” I whispered. 

 

I almost didn’t believe he would do it. I was motionless, eyes shut, the water stinging my skin, my head and hands and back pressed against the cool plastic wall, and then I felt him. One hand on my shoulder, his quiet groan when his skin touched mine. 

 

The shock of it was enough to make my knees give out, and when I swayed his other hand came up and caught my arm. 

 

“Your fangs are out.” Logan’s voice was low and fascinated.

 

I looked at him.

 

His face was inches from mine, his pupils dilated. I could see his pulse beating in his throat. Water beaded on his forehead, streamed down his cheeks. 

 

When I was human, I had desires. At least, I was pretty sure I did. But compared to what I felt now, those desires were no more than the annoying tickle of a stray thread. I wanted Logan. I wanted him inside me, I wanted his blood in my mouth. 

 

So yeah, my fangs were out.

 

“Can you kiss with those things?” Logan’s hand slid up to my neck. His gaze burned into mine. 

 

“Guess we’ll find out,” I said, and reached up and pulled him down to me.

 

His lips hit mine hard enough to hurt, his fingers digging into my skin as though he was trying to pull me into himself. He breath came faster, hot in my mouth, and when I felt his erection brush my stomach I realized I was about three seconds from biting him. I shoved myself backwards so hard I hit the wall with a thud. 

 

His eyes widened. “Jube.”

 

I clapped a hand over my mouth. “Holy shit.”

 

“What?” He put his hands on either side of my face. “What, what?”

 

“I just—” I tipped my head back and let the water hit my throat. “I almost lost it. I almost bit you.”

 

He let out an abrupt laugh, relief on his face. “That’s it?” he said. “I thought that’s why we came in here in the first place.”

 

I met his gaze, and his smile was so genuine, so  _ pure _ , that I laughed too. “Oh. Well. Right.”

 

“Can we go back to it, then, now that that’s cleared up?” His grin widened.

 

Instead of answering him, I went on tiptoes and scraped my fangs over his collarbone.

 

He groaned and pulled me against him, his erection pressing hard and hot against my stomach. I kissed over his shoulder, up his throat, the water on his blood-warmed skin tasting cool and alien on my tongue.

 

“I promise you,” he murmured hoarsely in my ear, “we will do slow and romantic at some point, but—”

 

He slid his hands up my thighs, and in one movement, lifted me up against the shower wall. 

 

I reached between us and wrapped my hand around him. He made a strangled sound when I did it, his forehead creasing and his eyes rolling back. 

 

“Here,” I whispered, and positioned him against myself, and then I tightened my legs around his waist. I felt the shock of heat as I drew him into me, hotter still than a human, and it made me gasp. He groaned, low and deep in his chest, and then he began to move. 

 

I liked sex. I liked it more after I was turned. It was fun, and it felt good, and I generally liked the people I did it with. 

 

This was nothing,  _ nothing _ like that. 

 

I felt slightly insane with lust and dizzy with wanting him. He was groaning into my shoulder, his hands around my thighs clutching me hard enough that I would have bruised if I still could. My hands were in his hair, my teeth at his throat.

 

“Bite me,” he gasped.

 

I didn’t have to be asked twice.

 

I sank my fangs into his neck. He let out a strangled cry, and if he hadn’t yanked me closer I would have been afraid I had hurt him. I tasted his blood welling up, hot and sweet on my tongue. Overwhelmed by his blood, by the blazing heat of him swollen inside me, I swallowed once and came. 

 

When I opened my eyes, he was leaning on the shower wall, still holding me up, but no longer moving. The bite on his neck had already healed. 

 

He gave me a lopsided smile. “Hey,” he said.

 

I unhooked my legs from around his waist, wincing regretfully as he slid out of me. “Promise you’ll put that back soon,” I said. 

 

He laughed. “Promise.”

 

“Provided we don’t die,” I added. 

 

He kissed my forehead. “Not gonna happen,” he said. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me against him.

 

“So what,” I said, closing my eyes, feeling him warm and alive, “we attack her when she comes to get me and...”

 

“And you call Pam,” he said into my ear. He ran his tongue around the whorl of my ear, making me shiver. “And we hope that she destroys the place while they’re distracted here.”

 

“It’s a terrible plan,” I said, my hands on his back, feeling his muscles moving beneath his skin.

 

“Pretty bad,” he agreed. “But it’s all we got, so it’s gonna work.”

 

I felt his hand come up and cradle the back of my head. “You should eat for real,” he said, “and then we both need to sleep.”

 

I bit his neck again, this time mostly without the lust delirium, and then he turned the shower off. 

 

“She could have given us  _ clothes _ ,” I said, cringing as I pulled on the T-shirt and jeans I’d spent the past several days wearing. “These smell gross.”

 

“I like it,” Logan said, putting his lips to my throat.

 

He kept his arms around me as we left the tiny bathroom. 

 

“You can sleep in the bed,” I reached up and squeezed his arm. “It doesn’t matter to me anyway.”

 

“Nah.” Logan reached down, picked me up, and deposited me gently on the bed. Then he climbed in beside me. 

 

“It’s extremely small,” I observed, hooking my legs over his. 

 

“Like it like this,” Logan said, putting his nose in my neck. 

 

I closed my eyes. Despite the fact that we were prisoners, despite the fact that I was pretty much definitely going to die in the next twenty-four hours, I actually felt happy. 

 

Logan kissed my neck, his arm snugly around my waist, and I felt his breathing slow and his body relax in sleep. I remembered, suddenly, being outside his bedroom door at the Mansion, hearing him struggle and toss. 

 

Marie had learned her lesson after that first incident. I was a much slower study. 


	9. when all is said and done

I hadn’t even knocked the first time. I’d been enrolled in college, just a few courses (really more of an excuse to have an apartment away from disapproving adult eyes, if I was being honest), and I’d been home for Christmas. Marie and I had stayed up too late sneaking Jean’s wine stash and when we’d gone upstairs, she’d turned right and I’d turned left. 

 

“Whatcha doing?” she’d asked. She’d figured it out a split second after the words came out of her mouth, and a wicked grin spread over her face. “ _...Oh _ .”

 

“Not like that, pervert,” I hissed, shoving her. “I just want to say hi.”

 

“Be careful.” The grin widened and she held up both fists. “He gets pointy at night. Or maybe that’s what you want.”

 

“Gross,” I said, even as the thought of it made my stomach flutter. 

 

Marie blew me a wobbly kiss. “‘Night, darlin’. Make good choices.”

 

I’d assumed he would be awake, but when I raised my hand to his door to knock, I had heard him dreaming.

 

I should have left, should have turned and chased Marie down the hall, but instead I put my hand on the doorknob. If he’d remembered to bolt the door, things might have turned out differently. But it was open, and I went in.

 

He was tangled in the blankets, shirtless and sweating, his expression tortured as he mumbled and tossed. I edged to the foot of the bed, my heart thumping.

 

“Wolvie,” I whispered. 

 

No sign he’d heard. He grunted, moaned. 

 

I tried again, a little louder. “ _ Wolvie _ .”

 

Nope. Nothing.

 

I looked around, then picked up a pillow from the floor. I tossed it at his head. It hit him and bounced off. And still, he dreamed.

 

The third time I hit him with the pillow—a full Jackie Robinson swing, direct to the face—he let out a roar. The claws popped and he lunged up, but I was already against the wall. 

 

His eyes opened, unfocused and terrified. He swung. I ducked, even though I was a good ten feet away from the danger zone. 

 

“It’s me!” I squawked, waving the pillow above my head.

 

The claws snapped back. “Jube?”

 

I peeked over the foot of the bed. “Guilty.”

 

Logan’s expression morphed from terror to dismay. “What are you doing in here, kid?” he gasped. “I could’ve killed you.”

 

“Nah. I’m faster than Marie.” I stood up. “And don’t call me kid.” The sudden movement, and the three glasses of wine, had made me lightheaded. My vision went dark. 

 

Suddenly I felt his hand on my arm. “Whoa.” 

 

I sat down hard on the bed, blinking against the dizziness. 

 

“You’ve been drinking,” Logan said. He let go of my arm and I could hear the disapproval in his voice. 

 

I turned my nose up at him. “I’ve had a few chardonnays, what of it?”

 

He scowled. “You’re eighteen, is what of it,” he said. 

 

“Legal drinking age in Europe,” I pointed out. 

 

“Which is not Westchester.” Logan angled his head so he could meet my gaze. 

 

“Jeez,” I said. “Will you stop. You are not my father.”

 

He grunted softly. “And thank God for that.” He patted my shoulder. “You okay?”

 

“I could ask you the same question.” I nodded at his tangled bedclothes.”Do you ever get a good night’s sleep?”

 

He grunted. “Don’t worry about it, Jube,” he said. 

 

“I can’t  _ help _ but worry about it,” I said. “You’re like this every night.”

 

He got up then, and closed his hand around my wrist. He pulled me to my feet. “Come on,” he said gruffly. “Get to bed.”

 

I went, but something drew me back, some weird little twinge that woke me when he had a nightmare. By my nineteenth birthday, I’d moved back home and was sleeping on his couch two or three nights a week. Jean interrogated me about it at least four times, and I’m pretty sure she poked around in my head once or twice. I didn’t really mind. She was worried about me, and that felt nice. I especially enjoyed the time I came into the kitchen and she had Logan cornered, a finger in his face, a warning look in her eyes. She turned and saw me and dropped her hand immediately, her expression melting into a smile, but she cast him a look before she left the room that was impossible to misinterpret. He looked at me guiltily after she’d left. Obviously, I feigned complete ignorance.

 

I wasn’t banned from his room or anything, but he was careful around the others after that, and most mornings I crept out before dawn.

 

Something happened that year. We’d been close before, obviously, we were teammates and he’d stopped treating me like a bratty teenager sometime before I learned to drive, but those two AM conversations showed me a different side of him. He was vulnerable at night, saying things he’d never say in the daytime, letting me see the parts of his past that hurt him the most. 

At first, I went to him because I worried about his nightmares, and then I went for myself. The bond forged between us felt at once as strong as adamantium and as brittle as glass. I was terrified of losing it. 

 

It was almost funny. I’d been so afraid he’d drop me for someone else: for Jean, who I knew he’d long had feelings for, or Ororo, who at one point I’m pretty sure he was actually  _ married _ to, or some other tall and brilliant beauty who was everything I wasn’t. But by the time M-Day happened, Jean was gone and there was no one else. He left because of me.

 

I wasn’t home when M-Day happened. I had gone to New York City for a few days to visit Natasha and to see the freaking Lion King on Broadway, of all things. We were sitting on a bench eating Levain cookies. I still remember what I was wearing: pink crop top, overall shorts, leopard-print Chucks. I’d only had one bite of the stupid cookie and I suddenly felt weird, nauseated and dizzy, and Natasha had eaten the rest. Idiotically, the only reason I even knew something had happened was because after the show I’d tried to light a cigarette and—nothing. 

 

I checked my phone, then, and saw the news reports, the endless confused and terrified tweets, the violence already starting against mutants who had lost their powers. Someone coined the term  _ decimated _ and it stuck, and I hated it, but that was how I felt. Broken apart. 

 

I spent that night shaking in Natasha’s arms, too upset to speak, too upset to cry. I texted Logan to tell him what had happened. I didn’t get an answer. 

 

I called Scott the next morning, and he told me to come home. Natasha drove me. He met me at the door, took me to the living room, sat me down. 

 

_ We’re opening the school as a sanctuary, _ he’d said, and his voice was remorseful, but there was no shame in it.  _ Jube, I’m sorry, there’s just not enough room. _

 

There were already mutants showing up, old and young, ringing the doorbell even as he told me I had to move out. I remembered trembling, remembered backing away from him and running up to Logan’s room. I would be safe with him, I thought. 

 

The door was unlocked. He was already gone.

 

“Jubilee.” Natasha’s voice behind me. She had followed me up the stairs. I turned around, shocked and stricken, unable to believe that everything I knew had been yanked away in less than twenty-four hours. 

 

“I, um.” I closed Logan’s door. “I guess I have to pack.”

 

There were tears in her eyes as she took me down to my room, packed my suitcases for me, carried them down the stairs and out to her car. The Mansion was chaos by then. No one noticed me leaving.

 

I didn’t do anything when I got back to her apartment. I just laid on my back in her guest room, staring at the ceiling, and for the first time in my life I wanted to die. I didn’t eat. I drank the water she brought me. I didn’t even speak to her. 

 

After two days she made me get up and shower. She put me in clean clothes and sat me down in front of a chicken salad sandwich and didn’t let me get up until I’d eaten half of it. I threw it up almost immediately.

 

I started drinking that evening. 

 

She found me on the fire escape one night after work, the last bottle of vodka from her liquor cabinet empty beside me. I was leaning against the rail, arms outstretched. I’d chucked my phone just moments before and watched it shatter on the sidewalk below. I remembered thinking of flying. 

 

She yanked me inside, yelled at me and cried, and then she called Steve. 

 

I don’t know what strings he pulled, because it certainly wouldn’t have flown with the Avengers, but somehow I ended up on the Helicarrier later that night. I woke up the next morning to the worst hangover of my life and Steve sitting on the foot of my bed.

 

“You can’t smoke up here,” was the first thing he said.

 

I put an arm over my eyes. “I don’t smoke,” I said. The very thought of it made my stomach churn. I hoped I wouldn’t barf in front of Captain America.

 

“Natasha begs to differ.” 

 

Natasha. Fuck. I’d been horrible to her for the past two weeks.

 

“You’ve been a terrible roommate,” Steve said, as though reading my thoughts. 

 

I groaned. “I know,” I said. 

 

He hesitated. “Director Fury is prepared to offer you a job.”

 

I took my arm off my eyes and rolled over to face him, wincing at the shooting pain in my head. “I beg your pardon?” I said. 

 

He was looking at me levelly, his expression serious. “You’re a good agent, Jubilee,” he said. “You were trained well, your mission performance is outstanding, and we don’t feel that the loss of your powers will be in any way detrimental to a career at SHIELD.”

 

I blinked at him. My mouth tasted like I’d been gnawing on a dishrag. I had to pee, I felt like I could puke at any moment, and I was pretty sure I smelled terrible. And Captain America was sitting on my bed telling me I had a job.

 

“Um,” I said, because I couldn’t process anything he was saying.

 

“You can walk away,” Steve said, “but I’d encourage you to consider it, Jubilee. After what’s happened, it’s all hands on deck.”

 

Someone wanted me. 

 

What he was saying was that someone wanted me.

 

“Yeah,” I said blearily. “Great. I’ll do it.”

 

Natasha had forgiven me for my two weeks of mutism, and even for drinking the entire contents of her liquor cabinet. She helped me move into the Helicarrier, unpacking my two suitcases in my new, tiny, very bland quarters.

 

“Call me any time,” she said, and she hugged me, and I marveled at what a very good friend she was. Better, it turned out, than my so-called family. I got a new phone. I didn’t bother downloading my old contacts.

 

Three weeks into my training at SHIELD, I remembered that when I’d tossed my phone off the fire escape, it had been after my twenty-seventh unanswered text to Logan.

  
  



	10. beautiful gardens of flowers and songs

At some point, I slept, because the next thing I knew Logan was shaking me awake.

 

“Jube,” he was saying urgently. “ _ Jube _ .”

 

“Gah, what?” I opened my eyes.

 

The hall was lit with orange along the floor, nothing more. Generator lights, from the look of it. 

 

“The power’s out, I think,” Logan said. His eyes were wide, his nostrils flaring. “Something smells wrong.”

 

I smelled it, too: the sharp, pungent smell of burning electrical wires. “Oh fuck,” I said. 

 

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Logan said. He popped his claws and looked at the walls.

 

I grimaced. “There’s almost zero chance there’s not adamantium behind this,” I said, tapping the corrugated metal wall.

 

“Can’t hurt to try,” he said, and took a slice. 

 

There was a loud clang, and a spark, and Logan let out a yelp. He stumbled backwards.

 

“Told you,” I said, looking at the silver glinting through the shredded metal. I swallowed hard. There was only one thing I could think of to do, and I really, really didn’t want to do it.

 

“Get behind me,” I said.

 

He looked at me, the realization of what I was planning too do dawning on his face. “Jube—”

 

“There’s not a splinter of wood in here, and silver sucks but it won’t kill me,” I said grimly. “I don’t want to kill  _ you _ by accident, so get behind me, okay?”

 

He grimaced, but he got behind me and put his hands on my shoulders, bracing me. 

 

I aimed my hands at the cell door and closed my eyes.

 

“Here goes nothing,” I muttered, and pulled the air around me.

 

Once more, icy agony shot through my arms, my body. This time, though, I was ready for it, and I gritted my teeth against the pain.  _ Use it, Jubilation _ . I fought through, drawing strength from Logan’s hands on my shoulders, and I heard the high squeal of metal separating. There was heat on my face, fiery pain contrasting with the cold.

 

“Jube,” Logan shouted in my ear, and he wrapped his arms around my chest, pulling my hands to my sides. I stopped firing, but the coldness didn’t recede. I let out a howl of anguish. Everything hurt. 

 

I heard his voice, right next to me, but it was fading. My vision wasn’t going dark  this time, though—no, this time it was getting brighter and brighter. The pain in my arms and legs started to recede. I suddenly realized that I could no longer feel the hot press of his body against mine. “Logan,” I managed to say, but he didn’t answer. 

 

“Take a few deep breaths,” said a woman’s voice. A  _ familiar  _ voice. 

 

I went rigid. I tried to look around but it was so  _ bright _ . I had to close my eyes. And then the smell hit me—the sweet, floral scent of fae.

 

“Are you a fucking  _ faerie _ ?” I snapped, eyes still squeezed shut. 

 

“Open your eyes,” the woman said.

 

I did, and I realized I was somehow outside. “Oh, what the hell,” I whispered. I dropped to my knees at once, covering my face with my hands, but my skin wasn’t burning. I was in full sunlight, somehow, and I wasn’t about to die.

 

“Where am I?” I said into my palms. I was kneeling on grass, soft and sun-warmed. My head spun.  

 

“You don’t have to cover your skin,” the woman said. I felt her fingers wrap around my wrists and pull my hands away from my face. “You won’t burn.”

 

I looked up and around. I was in what looked like a glade from a medieval painting, all heavy-fruited trees and lush flowers. The warm yellow sunlight put everything into a weird soft focus. It was like looking at the entire world through an Instagram filter.

 

I looked at the woman—at the faerie—kneeling before me. “You’re the one who kidnapped me at the club,” I said. She was small and pretty, with dark hair and eyes, and she was wearing an absolutely ridiculous flowered gown that I simultaneously hated and coveted. 

 

She looked abashed. “I’m so sorry about that,” she said, her voice sweetened by a Southern drawl. “I was undercover.”

 

“How’d you hide your smell?” I asked, sitting back onto the grass. My headache was starting to fade. 

 

“It was an inhibitor compound in the blood I fed you,” she said. “Weakened your senses. Probably made you heal slower, too. I’m sorry.”

 

I looked down at my wrists, now long healed. “Yeah,” I said. “And would you mind telling me just where the fuck I am?”

 

She smiled. “In the faerie realm,” she said. Her skin was actually  _ glittering _ . A butterfly landed on her shoulder and stuck its head into one of the flowers on her dress.

 

I blinked at her. “The faerie realm,” I repeated. “Right.”

 

“You’re part faerie,” she said.

 

I blinked again. I opened my mouth and closed it. I strongly suspected this was some sort of hypoglycemic hallucination brought on by overexertion of my newly recovered mutation, because what the actual fuck. 

 

“I... _ what _ ?” I managed to say.

 

“You’re part faerie,” she repeated. “Ophelia suspected it when she read about your powers. It was why she needed Sookie, and me. To compare our blood to yours.”

 

“I’m a  _ mutant _ ,” I said. “Or was. Now I’m a vampire. In any case, you can’t possibly expect me to add  _ another _ diagnosis to my list of weird nonhuman afflictions.”

 

“Your mutation is directly linked to your faerie blood,” the woman said. “It allowed you to access your light. You’re only one-sixteenth fae—without the X-gene, you wouldn’t have been able to manifest any powers at all.”

 

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me—” I broke off. “Who are you, again?”

 

“My name is Adilyn,” the woman said. 

 

“Adilyn,” I said. “Listen. I don’t know if you’re real or if I hit my head really really hard, but I would very much like to wake up now.”

 

“You’re not asleep,” Adilyn said. “I transported you here because you were dangerously close to exhausting your light and jeopardizing your life.”

 

“Not much of a life to jeopardize,” I said, tilting my head back and letting my fangs snap forward. 

 

She didn’t even flinch. “Once your mutation was reactivated, your light was rekindled. And yes, that is very much linked to your life, such as it is,” she said, her voice turning cool. She looked annoyed. “I  _ did _ do my research on you before I brought you here.”

 

“What about Logan?” I said, slightly disappointed that my fangs hadn’t even elicited a blink. I put them away, feeling pouty. 

 

“Logan,” she said, “is currently being removed from your cell by SHIELD, who I called as soon as it was clear Ophelia had gone to ground.”

 

“I wouldn’t trust that that’s what she did,” I muttered.

 

“Considering the coup that’s just happened in your Authority, it was the smartest thing she could have done,” Adilyn said. 

 

“Coup?”

 

“I don’t know the details,” Adilyn said. “I just know that you did something really stupid and I had to save you before you blew up, or whatever it is vampires do when they die.”

 

Yeesh. It would have been nice of Ophelia to  _ tell _ me that.

 

“Well, she probably didn’t know,” Adilyn said.

 

“Hey,” I said. “Stay out of my head.” Then something occurred to me. “If I’m a faerie, why can’t I read thoughts? I thought that was a faerie thing.”

 

She shrugged. “It is. Maybe your blood isn’t strong enough. You’ve never had any little bit of telepathy? Any intuition you couldn’t explain?”

 

I thought about the times when Logan had nightmares, how I always seemed to find myself at his door when he dreamed. And then I remembered how I had known— _ known— _ what Ophelia’s plan was. “Maybe,” I said.

 

“My advice is, don’t use your power unless you  _ really _ need to,” she said. “And unless you’ve eaten quite a bit beforehand.”

 

_ Eaten _ . I had been so hungry before she brought me here—now I felt as though I’d just fed. “I don’t feel like eating at all.”

 

“That’s the magic restoring your light,” Adilyn said. She got to her feet. “You’re almost recovered. I’ll bring you back.”

 

“What about Pam and Eric?” I said, accepting the hand she offered me and letting her pull me up. My headache was gone now, and I felt—great, actually. I tipped my head back and looked at the blue, blue sky. It was the first time I’d seen the sun in six years. 

 

“When I turned on Ophelia, I let Sookie go. She got them out. They’ll be extracted with you and Logan.”

 

I didn’t want to go back. 

 

“You have to,” Adilyn said.

 

I shut my eyes, feeling the sun warm my skin. “Stop reading my mind,” I said. “I just want to stay here a minute longer.”

 

“You miss the sun.”

 

“You fucking bet I miss the sun,” I said. I wanted to take my clothes off and sprawl in the grass. I wanted to stay here  _ forever. _ Logan and Pam were shrinking down, becoming tiny and insignificant in comparison to this warmth. 

 

“The longer you stay here, the more you forget your own world,” Adilyn said. “You’ve got to go back.”

 

“You are a huge buzz kill, you know that?” I said, opening my eyes and looking at her. 

 

She looked irritated. “I’m trying to keep you from completely losing yourself to the realm,” she said crossly. “I’m doing you a  _ favor _ .”

 

“Yeah, whatever.” I reached for her hand. “Fine. Whatever. Back to the nighttime.”

 

She rolled her eyes. “Hold on,” she said, and that bright white light came back, and the warmth of the sun vanished.

 

***

 

My skin was cold again, damn it. I so missed being warm. All the electric blankets in the world can’t warm you up when you’re dead.

 

I knew Adilyn was still with me even before I opened my eyes. I wondered if I, too, had that summer-wildflowers smell. Probably not. Probably the whole vampire thing trumped the faerie thing. I was kind of tired of having  _ things _ .

 

“Are we back?” I asked, even though I knew we were.

 

“Yes,” she said.

 

I opened my eyes. It took me a second, but I realized we were in the hallway outside of the cell Logan and I had been in. Adilyn had lost the flowery dress and was wearing a comparatively drab ensemble of black cargo pants and a black turtleneck. She was holding a rifle. 

 

I looked in the window. The cell was empty. “Logan?” I asked her.

 

“Already at the helicopter,” she said. 

 

“Well, let’s fucking  _ go _ then.”

 

She led me up three flights of stairs. I could hear the rotors even before she pushed the door open. A gust of cool night air hit me. We were on the roof. 

 

“So we  _ weren’t _ in a basement,” I muttered.

 

“Come on,” she said. 

 

I could see Logan sitting in the helicopter and I couldn’t help it, I pushed past Adilyn and ran at vampire speeds to him.

 

“Oh my God,” I said into his chest. I could feel his shock at having me basically appear instantaneously in his lap, but he put his arms around me.

 

“You’re okay,” he said. “Right? You’re okay? You disappeared—shit, Jube, shit.”

 

“Yes.” I held his face. “Are you?”

 

Before he could answer, Adilyn climbed into the helicopter next to me. “Buckle up,” she said.

 

I did, looking down at the seatbelts, when I heard a familiar voice.

 

“Not even going to say hi to an old friend?” 

 

My head snapped up and my eyes almost popped out of my head. “ _ Tash!”  _ I shrieked.

 

She grinned from the pilot’s seat. “Glad you’re alive, Jube,” she said.

 

“Then you’re—” My gaze went from Adilyn to Natasha.

 

“Working together, yes,” Adilyn said. “SHIELD paired us up after Sookie disappeared.”

 

“Okay, dude,” I said, “I know I’m slow to respond sometimes, but you really have to stop pulling the questions out of my head before I even ask them.”

 

Adilyn had the grace to look embarrassed. “Sorry,” she said. “Habit.”

 

Natasha turned back around. “We’ll talk more later,” she said. “Put your headsets on.”

 

I did, then looked over at Logan. He gave me a small smile and squeezed my knee.

 

We were going home.


	11. as good as new, my love for you

Natasha swapped out the helicopter for a light-tight SHIELD jet in Singapore, and on the way home, she explained what had happened while Adilyn flew.

 

Russell Edgington—whom I’d thought had received the True Death, on orders of the Council—had apparently resurfaced and made short work of first Nan, then Roman. Natasha’s last contact inside had told her the Council had gone Sanguinist, something about the blood of Lilith and a killing spree in downtown New Orleans.

  
“That’s—that’s impossible,” I said. “I have to call Nora.”  
  
“ _Nora_ ?” Natasha barked a laugh. “Nora’s the one who wanted you two captured in the first place.”  
  
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I said.

  
“Nora’s a Sanguinista,” Natasha said, a scowl flashing across her face. “She came out the second Roman was dead. From the intel I got, she sent you out here to get your mutation repowered so you could do her dirty work for her. But Edgington showed up and saved you the trip.”  
  
I started to shake. Nora, whom I’d liked and trusted, had been working with the Viper all along. To use me as a weapon. Again. Was I always to be a fucking pawn in someone’s shitty game?

 

I felt a burn of rage in my chest that was completely at odds with my own feeling of pain and betrayal, and I realized that the anger was Logan’s. I looked at him, saw the fury on his face. I reached over and put my hand over his.

 

“You have to calm down,” I said.

 

“Don’t tell me to —“ He snarled.

 

“Listen,” I hissed. “I can feel everything you’re feeling right now, and I cannot process your feelings and mine, so you have _got to calm down_.”

 

Something shifted in his expression. He looked abashed.

 

“I didn’t realize,” he sad. He took a deep breath, and I felt the fire in my chest subside to a dull glow.

 

I started to pull away, but he caught my wrist and sandwiched my hand between both of his. He was warm. It helped.

 

“Pam and Eric?” I said finally, when I felt I could trust my voice again. “And Sookie?”

 

“On their way back to SHIELD,” Adilyn said.

 

“I want to see her,” I said to Natasha. “Pam.”

 

“As soons you’re debriefed,” she said. “I promise.” She patted my knee and stood. “I have to go up front, but get some sleep, okay?”

 

“Fat chance,” I muttered, but I felt exhaustion starting to creep in, and I didn’t want to bleed.

 

“Here,” Logan said, flipping the armrest up and putting his arm around me.

 

It was such an unremarkable thing--such a normal little gesture--that I suddenly really did feel like crying. All the shit that had happened in the past ninety-six hours and I hadn’t even really registered that Logan was back in my life. _You never have to see him again_ , Nan had said, and I supposed i had internalized it. Once the mission was over, I had planned to go back to my unremarkable existence in New Orleans. I guess I had figured he would sort of fade into the background.

 

But I couldn’t go back, now, and I didn’t want to relinquish him to my distant past.

 

 _I could keep you_ , I thought in wonderment.

 

I put my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes, feeling the brush of his fingertips tracing patterns on my arm. Unless the reactivation of my mutation somehow also had brought me back to life--I pressed a hand to my chest to confirm that my heart was still silent and motionless--I would never die. With his healing factor, he was pretty damn close to immortal, too.

 

“What are you doing?”

 

I opened my eyes. He was looking at me with concern, at my hand on my chest. I let it fall.

 

“Nothing,” I said. “Everything.”

 

He had told me he loved me. I didn’t have to lose him. I _never_ had to lose him. The thought made my head feel like a helium balloon, thin-walled and close to bursting with elation.

 

“You should rest,” he said.

 

How could I? The Authority had crumbled, and I was leaving yet another life in the dust. But it felt, somehow, like I was rejoining the world.

 

When Pam had turned me, I had been empty, more dependent and needful than even a newly-made progeny should have been. She’d filled the vast space that Logan had left. She was bonded to me physically-- _spiritually_ even, maybe--and as crap as she was at feelings, she had been precisely what my poor, emotionally shattered psyche had needed. And now I had Logan, too, and I felt almost doubled somehow. Like I had all this love that had no place to go.

 

Fuck. Maybe I did need sleep after all.

 

His arm was still around me, and I focused on memorizing every inch of its warmth against my shoulders. At some point between my spine and my left scapula, I fell asleep.

 

***

 

I woke to the feeling of Pam pulling at me.

 

My eyes snapped open and I was on my feet. It wasn’t until I felt Logan’s hand close over my arm that I realized where I was.

 

“She’s calling me,” I said desperately. The rumble of the engines had stopped--we’d landed--but the damn plane had no windows.

 

“I doubt that,” Logan said dryly. His hand tightened on my arm. “It’s four in the afternoon.”

 

“Where are we?”

 

“Helicarrier.” He tugged me back into my seat. “As far as I know, you’re still a vampire, so maybe don’t go running into broad daylight.”

 

I felt around for Pam. No, she wasn’t calling me, but she was close by. She was--missing me, perhaps.

 

“Where’s Natasha?” I felt achy and disoriented and really, really hungry.

 

“Went inside. We will, too, as soon as the sun goes down.”

 

I looked at his hand on my arm. “You stayed with me.”

 

“Well, yeah,” he said, giving me the barest little smile. He moved his hand down my arm and laced his fingers with mine. “She brought you some Tru Blood. Or you could have, you know. The real thing.” He tilted his head.

 

I could hardly believe it--there was actually a spark of mischief in his eyes. “Wolvie,” I said. “I think you might be _into_ this.”

 

He shrugged, grinned. “Nice to feel needed.”

 

A laugh bubbled up. “I’ll stick with the Tru Blood,” I said, reaching for one. “I don’t want this to go to your head.”

 

His grin widened. “Too late,” he said.

 

The Tru Blood tasted especially horrible after the past few days of drinking from Logan, but I was afraid of getting accustomed to the taste of him. I never _had_ to lose him, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t still afraid to.

 

“You could load me in a coffin and take me inside,” I pointed out, gulping down a second bottle and running the back of my hand across my mouth.

 

He looked down at his lap. “Soon as you walk through those doors, it’s debriefing and testing and God knows what else,” he said. “Don’t know if I’ll be able to stay with you.”

 

I felt a little tingle of happiness run up and down my spine. “So you want some alone time.”

 

He chuckled softly. “Maybe.”

 

“Mm.” I tucked myself against him and looked up at him from out of the corner of my eye. “What did you have in mind?”

 

Suddenly his hand was on my face, light as sunshine, turning me to face him. He leaned down. His lips were a quarter inch from mine.

 

“This,” he said quietly, and kissed me.

 

 _Oh_.

 

Unhurried, gentle, even--well, shit, even sweet. And this was what kisses were supposed to be like, not frantic and desperate in a prison cell. His hand on my cheek stroked down to my neck and I was falling, floating, flying.

 

When he pulled back at last I was literally dizzy. He had managed to kiss me out of coherency.

 

“Uh,” I managed. “Wow.”

 

His eyes were still closed, his breath coming in warm puffs on my lips. “More where that came from,” he murmured, and then he was kissing my eyelids, my cheeks, my jaw, my throat. Still with those soft, slow movements.

 

Sex with Pam was fun; with Eric, intense. I’d had humans now and again, but I rarely learned their names. If I’d been kissed like this before, it wasn’t in recent memory.

 

“I’m starting to hope nightfall doesn’t ever come,” I said, eyes closed, my hand in his hair.

 

He muffled his quiet laugh in the curve of my neck.

 

“I hope there’ll be a lot of opportunity for--” His lips moved over my collarbone. “Us. This.”

 

I froze. “Promise?” I said, trying to keep my voice light, trying to keep from hoping.

 

He pulled up, met my gaze squarely. His expression was suddenly dead serious.

 

“Promise,” he said.

 

My throat knotted up, and I swallowed hard. “Okay,” I whispered, as he brought his mouth back to my shoulder. “Okay.”

 

I was starting to think that I could literally spend my entire eternal life being thoroughly kissed by Logan, but then, because my luck continued to be the worst, my phone rang.

 

I half expected Logan to realize what he was doing and jump backwards, but he didn’t. He just pressed one last kiss to the angle of my jaw and handed me my phone.

 

“Are you up?” Natasha said, before I had even had the chance to say hello.

 

“Yeah. Yeah.” I straightened up. She sounded worried.

 

“Well, come in, then, don’t wait until dark. There’s a lot to do.”

 

***

They took my blood, and measured my vital signs, which was hilarious because I _had_ no vital signs. Not even a blood pressure--by my estimation, vampire blood just sort of sloshes around in our bodies. They had me shoot some plasma bursts, which made me feel horrible, and they shone a tiny little beam of UV light on my arm, which, interestingly, stung but didn’t burn me. In between, they asked me about eight zillion questions. I kept the faerie thing mum until Adilyn herself showed up and reviewed what she’d told me in that magical Instagram glade. I gave up on secrets, then. They had my entire life in a file somewhere, knew more about me than I knew about myself, and apparently I just had to deal with it. By the time they were done, I was in a very bad mood.

 

“Tash,” I said, as she helped me to one of the spare rooms (I’d vomited pretty spectacularly after the third plasma burst, which was what finally made them call it quits), “what’s going on?”

 

She gave me a narrow look, as though she was trying to decide whether I was worth trusting with classified information.

 

“There’s never been anyone like you,” she said at last. She pushed the guest room door open and maneuvered me over to the bed.

 

“Uh, thanks, I guess,” I said, sitting down and gingerly getting myself supine. Oh, that was better. My head still felt abysmal, but at least the room wasn’t spinning.

 

“What I mean is,” she said, cracking a Tru Blood and setting it down on the nightstand, “is that we’ve studied vampires, and we’ve studied mutants, and we’ve studied faeries...but we’ve never come across anyone who was all three.”

 

“Lucky me.” I tried to sip the Tru Blood while lying down and ended up pouring half of it down the side of my face. “Oops.”

 

“There’s a chance--” Natasha broke off, then went and retrieved a towel from the bathroom and handed it to me. She bit her lip.  “I’ve been talking to Sookie.”

 

“Is she okay?” I mopped liquid out of my ear and dabbed at the pillowcase.

 

“She’s fine, all things considered,” Natasha said. “But she said she met a vampire-faerie hybrid.”

 

That got my attention. I stopped messing with the towel. “And?”

 

She took a deep breath. “And...and apparently this person was...not as susceptible to the usual effects of UV lights on vampires.”

 

“Not susceptible to the…” I sat up. My head throbbed, but her words took priority. “They could be in the sun?”

 

She grimaced. “According to Sookie.”

 

“That UV light.” I stuck my arm out. “I thought it was weaker or something. It didn’t burn.”

 

“It wasn’t weaker.”

 

”But the Viper had lights—and they _hurt—“_  My mind whirled.

 

Natasha didn’t look surprised. “She’d been starving you. Even with whatever you’d gotten from Logan, you were weak. And you’d just been reactivated. If you’d been feeding, you might have—”

 

I bounced. ”So if I feed—!”

 

“Don’t get too excited, Jubilee--”

 

Too late. I was about to jump out bed and run down the hallway whooping. “I could go outside!” I said.

 

Natasha put a hand on my chest as I started to stand. “ _No_ ,” she said. “You are in no shape to test that theory. Not yet.”

 

“Yet,” I said, letting her push me back onto the bed.

 

“More tests tomorrow,” she said. “Small doses of UV. Maybe a silver test. We don’t have a good way to measure what Adilyn calls your light. You felt sick after three bursts, that’s probably the best way to tell if you’re depleted.”

 

“You make me sound like a lithium battery,” I said.

 

“Yeah, and the only way for you to recharge is by eating,” she said, pushing the bottle toward me.

 

“I can’t stomach it,” I said. I’d felt unsettled and sick since the two bottles on the plane. What I really wanted was more of Logan’s blood. I had felt fucking _amazing_ after drinking from him.

 

“Can I see Logan?” I asked. “Or Pam?”

 

“Logan’s still giving his statement,” Natasha said. “I’ll have Pam come over.”

 

Warmth bloomed in my chest. “Thank you,” I said gratefully.

 

She got up. “Don’t wear yourself out,” she said.

 

Pam opened the door not ten minutes later. “These fucking people,” she said furiously, “keeping you in a room for so _fucking_ long--” and then she was next to me in bed, her arm around my waist, her face in my neck.

 

Then she pulled back, looking startled. “You smell different,” she said. “What did that bitch do?”

 

“Uh.” I sat up, grimacing. “They didn’t tell you?”

 

“They didn’t tell me shit,” Pam said.

 

I filled her in, the short version, and Pam’s scowl got deeper and deeper until I actually thought she might set the room on fire.

 

“She could have killed you,” she snarled.

 

“She didn’t,” I pointed out helpfully.

 

“You’re part _faerie_?” Pam smelled my neck again. “Yeah. There it is.”

 

“Apparently.” I pulled my knees up to my chest. “Natasha thinks...She thinks I might be able to go outside. Like, during the day.”

 

Pam’s eyes widened incrementally. “You’re serious.”

 

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

 

“Eric thought he could go outside once,” she said darkly. “Didn’t go well.”

 

“I’ll try it in a…” I paused. “Controlled environment.”

 

“Or not at all,” Pam said.

 

I didn’t answer. I fully intended to try as soon as they let me, and she should know me well enough to know that.

 

“Whatever,” she said at last. “Do what you want.”

 

“Thanks.” I kissed her cheek.

 

She narrowed her eyes. “And not that I care, but Logan?”

 

I stiffened. “What about him?”

 

“He fucked you over once,” she said, and for once there wasn’t a trace of sarcasm in her tone. “Be careful.”

 

“I didn’t even--”

 

“Don’t bullshit me, Anja,” Pam said sharply. “I can feel it. He screws up, he won’t like what happens next.”

 

“Noble of you,” I said.

 

“Yeah, well.” Pam stood up. “Eric’s calling me. They’re letting us out tonight. Not you, I hear.”

 

“No,” I said.

 

She reached over and squeezed my hand hard enough to hurt. She didn’t say anything else, but I knew what she meant.

 

I curled on my side after she’d left, my head still pounding, unable to stomach the idea of even one more sip of Tru Blood. I had just closed my eyes to try and sleep when someone knocked.

 

“Come in,” I said, and my stomach lurched with a weird combination of joy and trepidation when he opened the door.

 

“Jube.” Logan’s expression went from hopeful to worried in about a nanosecond. He was at my side at once. “What the fuck.”

 

“Yeah, I barfed on the tech who was running the last test,” I said, rubbing my eyes. I must’ve looked worse than I thought. “Guy almost passed out. You’d think he’d never seen anyone puke straight blood before.”

 

“What do you need?” He dropped to his knees beside the bed, his hands on my stomach, my shoulder.

 

“Sleep,” I said. “Well. Blood, then sleep.” I rolled over and gagged a little. I hadn’t thought it was possible to be starving and nauseated at the same time.

 

“Yeah. Here. Here.” I heard the snikt of his claws, and then he was pressing his wrist to my lips. I felt too terrible to protest, and he tasted _so fucking good_. I closed my eyes and drank, and drank, and drank.

 

“Okay?” I heard him ask, and I nodded. The nausea was subsiding, but I was so, so tired.

 

“I just need to…” I mumbled. “Close my eyes for a minute.”

 

“Sleep,” he said. “I’ll be here.”

 

***

 

It took me a second, when I woke up, to realize that the incredibly warm weight pressed against my back was Logan. We were on the Helicarrier, and the mission was over, and we were safe, and Logan was curled around me, sound asleep.  

 

I didn’t sleep with anyone. Vampires didn’t really hold much for sentimentality, which was all co-sleeping was when you were dead. Pam and Eric certainly weren’t interested. But Logan was human--sort of, anyway--and maybe it meant something to him, lying in the dark with me.  

 

And maybe I was still human enough that it meant something to me, too.

 

***

 

I didn’t know if it was day or night when I woke up again. Logan slumbered on, now sprawled on his back, snoring gently.

 

I tried to stand up without disturbing him, but the moment I shifted on the bed, his eyes opened. “Hey.”

 

“Hi. Sorry.” I rolled back toward him. “I was trying not to wake you.”

 

“C’mere.” He put a hand on my waist and pulled me toward him.

 

“Oh,” I said. “Okay.”

 

“How you feeling?” he asked, sliding the hand up over my side and down again.

 

I considered. “Good,” I said. “Great, actually.” The headache had vanished, and I honestly felt like I could hop out of bed and do a few laps around the Helicarrier. It was amazing what some actual blood could do.

 

He shifted a little, scooting closer to me, and _god_ he was _radiating_ heat. I suddenly realized that my knees were touching his thighs, that his face was six inches from mine on the pillow.

 

We weren’t in dire straits. There was no psychopaths anywhere in the vicinity. And while it wasn’t exactly the Four Seasons, the bed situation was beyond acceptable and there was no one actively trying to kill us.

 

“Wow,” I said softly.

 

Logan blinked. “What?”

 

“I just.” I put my hand on his arm. I had wished for this, years ago. “It’s catching up to me. This. All of it.”

 

He smoothed my hair back from my forehead. “Me too,” he said.

 

“I keep forgetting you thought I was dead until like six days ago,” I admitted.

 

His lips tightened. “Yeah.”

 

“You’re mad,” I said. I pulled my hand back, but he kept stroking my hair.

 

He sighed. “No,” he said. “I understand why you did it. I just wish--I shouldn’t have walked away. I should have done things differently.”

 

“Yeah, you should have,” I said, “but you didn’t, and I know you’re prone to self-flagellation or whatever, but we’re both here now, aren’t we?”

 

He huffed a little through his nose. “Self-flagellation.”

 

“Well, you are.” I reached back up and ran my fingertips over his collarbone. “Running off into the woods to do your penance.”

 

“Not this time,” he said. He moved a little closer. His gaze burned into mine.

 

“I’d follow you,” I whispered, and stretched up and kissed him.

 

He groaned a little when my lips touched his, his breath warm and foreign in my mouth. I felt sort of guilty, knowing that my entire body was literally room temperature, but he didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he was kissing me with such enthusiasm that it didn’t seem he even _noticed_.

 

“I promised you slow,” he murmured against my lips. “Hope I can deliver.” I felt his hand on my hip, gently pressing me backward, and he half-rolled on top of me.

 

“I’d like to think--” I gasped as he ran his tongue down my neck--”there will be plenty of opportunities.”

 

“Oh, yeah,” he growled, and then he was kissing my jaw, my earlobe, my throat, his thumb brushing my breast just lightly enough to make me feel like I was losing my goddamn mind.

 

“Let me--” I wriggled out of my T-shirt. The sports bra took more work, and he chuckled a little when I yelped in frustration and sat up to yank it over my head.

 

“You never were patient,” he said, and the feeling of his hand pressing against my bare stomach almost made me pass out. I let out a whimper. “Or quiet,” he added, and laughed again when I glared at him.

 

“Shut up,” I said, flopping backwards. I pulled at him, nudging his leg with mine, and he obligingly rolled the rest of the way on top of me.

 

“Oh--” The sound he made in my ear didn’t sound totally voluntary, nor did the way his whole body shuddered when his cock pressed up against me. “Jube,” he said hoarsely, his breath coming faster.

 

“Clothes,” I said, yanking at his shirt, “clothes, clothes.”

 

Sudden emptiness as he pulled back long enough to strip the shirt. I wriggled out of the SHIELD-issue uniform pants they’d given me. I could see him in the dimness, muscles flexing, veins standing out on his arms. There was no moonlight to illuminate him, but I couldn’t imagine him looking any more fucking poetic.

 

“Oh,” I said, watching him kick his jeans into the corner. “You’re as hot out of your clothes as you are in them.”

 

I thought he would laugh, but the look he gave me was positively _feral_. If I had known he could look at me like that, I might have told him I was still around a long time ago. I actually felt sort of weak-legged, even though I was lying down.

 

He put his hands on the mattress on either side of me and pressed a slow kiss to the inside of my knee, and it almost killed me all over again. His lips were warm and his beard tickled my skin and he was moving, slowly, like he promised, parting my thighs with one hand and kissing slow and luxurious up my leg. I clapped a hand over my mouth to keep from moaning out loud. I wasn’t sure how it was possible since I didn’t have a heartbeat, but I was so turned on I was absolutely _throbbing_.

 

I supposed, as he worked the inside of my left thigh with his tongue until I was literally writhing, that a hundred and fifty years was plenty of time to learn how to get really good at sex, but Eric was a thousand and he’d _never_ made me feel like this. I was vaguely aware that my attempts to keep my moans quiet had failed miserably, and that I was probably making enough noise that they could hear me on the flight deck.

 

When he finally made it to my clit--one long lap with the flat of his tongue--I practically flew off the bed. I didn’t know _what_ he was doing down there or how he was doing it, but it felt fucking amazing. I could feel him groaning, low and deep in his throat, and after the fourth time I had come I realized he was basically thrusting into the mattress.

 

“Come here,” I said hoarsely, pulling at his shoulders.

 

He obliged immediately, climbing on top of me, and I took his face in my hands and kissed him. He was glassy-eyed and breathing hard. I should have felt sated, at least a little, but if anything I was more turned on than ever, and I suddenly realized that I was feeling his desire as well as my own.

 

“Jube--” he said, sounding hoarse and desperate.

 

“Yes.” I wrapped my legs around his waist, feeling his cock pressing against me, and he made a sound that was almost a sob. I lifted my hips and he lowered his and he sank into me, “oh _Jube_ ” in my ear, his hand in my hair, and he was rocking into me, short gasps with each thrust, groaning my name over and over until his breath caught and he tensed and hardened and shook above me.

 

I kept my eyes open as his movements slowed, as he became lax and heavy, his breathing coming back to a normal rate. He kissed my shoulder, my neck, sighed. The hair at the nape of his neck was uneven, a little shaggy. He needed a trim. I loved him so _fucking_ much.

 

I had that curious doubling feeling again, like I had twice as many emotions as could fit in my body, and again I realized it must be him. I would never get used to this. Particularly when it felt so much like he loved me, too.

 

I felt my eyes burning and I blinked hard. “You’re pretty good at that,” I said, trying for levity, and I guess it worked because he lifted his head from my shoulder and laughed.

 

“Quite the compliment,” he said. He propped himself on his elbows and lightly kissed my cheeks, my nose, my lips.

 

“I just don’t want you to get complacent,” I told him, and he laughed again, and I thought that I’d never seen him look like that, relaxed and content and _happy_. I hadn’t realized until right that second just how much he scowled.

 

I still had my legs around his waist, and I pulled him a little closer. “So, like, your healing factor.”

 

He grinned. “Yeah?”

 

“Does that extend to…” I bucked my hips a little, feeling him shift and move inside me, already starting to harden again.

 

The grin widened. “Yeah,” he said.

 

“So you could be ready again in what, like, ten minutes?” I ran a hand up his back and he shivered, delightfully.

 

He kissed me. “Three,” he murmured against my mouth. “Five, tops.”

 

“ _Awesome_ ,” I said, and kissed him back.

 

***


	12. epilogue: andante, andante

I didn’t stay in New Orleans after that, obviously. I didn’t even stay in Louisiana.

 

_ Don’t say I never did anything for you _ , Pam’s text message had said, the day that Logan and I were released from SHIELD. I hadn’t understood it until Nick Fury himself came to dismiss us. I knew it the moment he stepped into the room and told us, in an expressionless voice, that we were free to go, that we had an apartment in Manhattan waiting for us, and that there was a hundred grand in each of our bank accounts, for our troubles. 

 

After he’d left the room, Logan turned to me, bemused. “What?” he said.

 

“Just take it at face value, Wolvie,” I said, grinning so hard my cheeks hurt. 

 

The apartment was nice, a light-tight furnished two-bedroom in Midtown that had hardwood floors and granite countertops. It was my name on the lease, to be paid in perpetuity by SHIELD. I ought to have known that Pam’s generosity to Logan would be limited.

 

I flew back to New Orleans two days later, leaving Logan with the key and strict orders to have the fridge stocked with Tru Blood when I returned. I packed up my little apartment and broke my lease. Then I drove after sunrise, for as long as I could stand it, until my nausea threatened the upholstery of the rental car. I watched my shadow on the ground as I walked into a vampire motel just outside of Alexandria.

 

The early morning sun was warm on my shoulders. It was so bright I had to put on the pink sunglasses I’d bought at a gas station. I might have cried a little.

 

I walked into Fangtasia that night, and Pam was in a skintight vinyl catsuit, and Eric was draped over that stupid throne he kept in the back of the club, and both of them looked up when I walked in, and neither of them looked surprised. It was exactly the way it had always been, and completely and utterly different. 

 

My coffin was still in Pam’s basement, but this time I stayed in her room. 

 

“You can leave any time,” she said dryly, but her hand was combing through my hair and she didn’t seem to mind my arm around her waist. 

 

“Okay,” I said, not moving.

 

She looked down at me. “Did you tell him?” she asked.

 

I started to reply, to play dumb, to ask  _ Tell him what _ ? But I knew exactly what she meant and there was no real reason to pretend I didn’t.

 

I curled against her, closing my eyes. “No,” I said. 

 

She gave my hair a gentle yank, forcing me to tip my head up and look at her. “You can play house all you want,” she said, her blue eyes steady and cool. “I support it. Hell, it’ll be a relief to have you out of my hair.”

 

I looked back at her, waited. She almost never talked like this, like she meant it. 

 

“But this--” She gave my hair another little tug, then slid her hand around to cup my neck possessively. “This is permanent.”

 

“I know that,” I said. I tightened the arm around her waist.  

 

“I know  _ you _ know that,” she said, slipping back into her usual disdainful affect. “I want to make sure he does, too.”

 

Logan hadn’t asked about my trip to Louisiana. He hadn’t looked happy about it, either. I was pretty sure he had some idea.

 

“Just so we’re clear,” she added, “I am under no circumstances releasing you at any point.”

 

The sound of the R-word made me shudder with vertiginous horror. That my connection with Pam should be broken--that I should be set adrift--”No,” I said, feeling sick. “Don’t even say it.”

 

“Good.” She sounded mollified. “Then he’ll just have to learn to share.”

 

And then, to my complete shock, she kissed my forehead. 

 

“I love you,” I said. 

 

“I can’t believe you can  _ daywalk _ ,” she said grumpily, and kissed my forehead again. 

 

***

 

On the fourth day I was there, Pam pushed at me when I crawled into bed with her. “You’re suffocating me,” she said. “When do you go back to New York?”

 

“Tonight,” I said, and she stopped pushing. 

 

“Good.” She sounded sulky. She rolled away from me.

 

“I’ll be back in the winter.” I pressed myself against her back, cajoling. “Gets cold in New York.”

 

“I don’t care.” She curled up tighter.

 

I smiled into her shoulder. “Okay,” I said.

 

***

 

Eight years ago, I had cried in Natasha’s Manhattan apartment. At two AM that night, I unlocked the door to mine.

 

Logan was lying on the couch, eyes closed. He sat up when I came in. “Hi,” he said. 

 

I don’t know what he was expecting, but when I came over and sat by him, he let out a sigh that sounded like relief. 

 

“I missed you,” he said, putting his arm around my shoulders.

 

“Missed you too.”

 

“Um.” He turned his face into my hair. “How was it? With Pam?”

 

I leaned into him. “It was nice. It was good.”

 

There was a long pause, and I could practically feel him thinking. He took a deep breath. “Wasn’t sure if you were coming back,” he said at last, and his voice sounded heavy. 

 

_ Oh _ . So that was it. 

 

“I just got you back,” I said, lightly tracing the outline of his knee through his jeans. “Think I’d give you up that easily?”

 

“Pam--” he started, and I cut him off.

 

“Pam is my maker,” I said firmly. “I love her, and she loves me, and she will always be in my life.”

 

I felt him nod. “Right.”

 

“But you--” I pulled away, swung my leg over him, and straddled him. I took his face in both hands. “You’re a part of me, Wolvie.”

 

He took a little breath, his brow furrowing. He looked like he wanted to say something, but I wasn’t done. 

 

“You’re part of me,” I said again, my thumbs stroking his cheekbones. “I’ve loved you since I knew what it was to love someone. And you’re as permanent for me as she is.”

 

The furrow relaxed a little. He nodded. “I can live with that,” he said. Then he looked down, put his hands on my waist. “Hey, Jube?”

 

“Yeah.” I angled my head, trying to catch his gaze.

 

“I never told you.” He looked up at me. Met my eyes. “Not properly. I love you.”

 

I smiled. “I know, Wolvie.” I kissed him lightly. “I love you too.”

 

***


End file.
